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WILLIAM THE SILENT. 



WILLIAM THE SILENT 



By FREDERIC HARRISON 

WITH NOTES BY 

HEXEY KETCHAM 



" The Prince is a rare man, of great authoritie, universally beloved, verie 
wyse in resolution in all things, and voyd of pretences, and that which is 
worthie of speciall prayse in hym, he is not dismayed with any losse or 
adversitie." Da. Wilson to Lord Burleigh, 3rd December, 1576. 



ILLUSTRATED 



THE PERKIXS BOOK COMPANY, 
296 Broadway, New York. 



Fthe library ofI 
i congress, i 

JTvw Cowfcw RecbivedI 

OCT. ;■ j902 ' 

COPVRIOHT PNTRV 

Cl-VUfa . , to ^ / ^ ^ 

Ci ASsWxXa No. 
I COPY B 






Copyright, 1902, 
By E. a. BRAINERD. 



c"c •-, 



Zo Bmma (SlueenslRegent 

OP 

HOLLAND 

fS INSCRIBED THIS LIFE- 

dF HER GREAT ANCESTOR 

FOUNDER OF THE/ 

[Ration's independence/ 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
CHAPTER I. 

Family—Birth— Education— Early Life 1 

1533-1556. 

CHAPTER II. 

General and Minister— Second Marriage— In Loyal 

Opposition 25 

1556-1564. 

CHAPTER III. 
The Protestant Revolution 49 

1564-1567. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Sedition— Rebellion— War c 73 

1566-1567. 

CHAPTER V. 

Alva— Terror— Defeat 105 

1567-1569. 

CHAPTER VI. 

In Exile and Affliction— The Nassau Family 137 

1567-1580. 

V 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAOE. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Beggars of the Sea— Brill— St. Bartholomew — De- 
feat 153 

1569-1572 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Death Grapple— Negotiations— Abandonment 180 

1572-1574. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Requesens—Leyden— Charlotte de Bourbon 212 

1573-1576. 

CHAPTER X. 
Don John— General Union— Apogee 235 

1576-1578. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Discord— Ban— Apology 258 

1577-1580. 

CHAPTER XII. 
United States— Anjou— Assassins 281 

1581-1583. 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Louise de Coliqny— Death— Conclusion 301 

1583-1584. 



WILLIAM THE SILENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

FAMILY BIRTH EDUCATIOI^ EARLY LIFE. 

1533-1556. 

^^ When we study the foundation of the United 
Provinces/' says a great French writer, ^' we learn 
how a State, from an origin almost unnoticed, 
rapidly rose into greatness, was formed without 
design, and in the end belied all human forecast. 
Those large and wealthy provinces of the mainland 
which began the revolution — Brabant, Flanders, 
and Hainault — failed to achieve their freedom. 
In the meantime, a small corner of Europe, w^hich 
had been won from the sea by infinite labor, and 
had maintained itself by its herring-fishery, rose 
suddenly to be a formidable power, held its own 
against Philip II., despoiled his successors of al- 
most all their possessions in the East Indies, and 

1 



2 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

ended by taking under its protection the monarcliy 
of Spain " (Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, cap. 

164.). 

The man who inspired, founded, and made pos- 
sible this marvellous development was William, 
Count of Nassau, titular Prince of Orange, sur- 
named the Silent. The eloquent epigram of Vol- 
taire records the result of his achievement. His 
career, like his nature and his circumstances, was 
made up of anomalies and filled with complex ele- 
ments. The man who organised the national re- 
bellion of Holland, by birth a German count, be- 
came by inheritance a Flemish magnate and a sov- 
ereign prince. A Lutheran by family, he was 
brought up a Catholic, and died a Calvinist. His 
early years were passed as a soldier and minister of 
the Empire, as ambassador and lieutenant of the 
King of Spain, and a grandee of boundless magni- 
ficence. Himself the mainspring of a national and 
religious insurrection, his best energies were spent in 
moderating the political and religious passions which 
were at once the cause and the result of the struggle. 
Personally a devout man, he professed in succession 
all the three great forms of Christian belief, whilst 
steadily opposing all that was extreme and all that 
was violent in each. His memory is still passionately 
cherished in his adopted fatherland: first as the 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 3 

founder of an illustrious Commonwealtli, then as tlie 
father of a long line of able statesmen and ruling 
princes, and finally as a martyr to the cause of 
national independence and liberty of conscience. 

William, the eldest son of William, Count of 
l^assau, and of Juliana of Stolberg, was born in 
the hereditary castle of Dillenburg, in Nassau, on 
the 25th of April 1533, the eldest of five sons and 
seven daughters. By birth he was, through many 
generations, of pure German race, the heir of one 
of the smaller ruling houses of the Empire, a 
House which had produced many chiefs illustrious 
in war and in council, and which by a series of 
splendid alliances had amassed titles, offices, and 
vast possessions in Germany, in the ^NTetherlands, 
and in France. By a singular fortune the boy 
William, then aged eleven, was named by the will of 
his cousin Rene, dying on the field young and child- 
less, as heir to the immense fiefs of the N^assau race 
in the E'etherlands, together with the puny State of 
Orange * on the Rhone, and the barren title of sover- 
eign Prince of Orange. From his twelfth year Wil- 
liam of ISTassau bore the style of the petty princedom 
which he never visited, and he transmitted the 

* The principality of Orange was situated in the south of 
France near Avignon, about sixty miles north of the Mediter- 
ranean coast. It is now in the department of Vaucluse. 



4: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

titular sovereignty to his descendants down to our 
own times. At the age of twenty-six, William be- 
came, by the death of his father, head of the House 
of ISTassau-Dillenburg, the possession and revenues 
of Avhich he transferred to his brother John. Thus, 
whilst his birth was as noble as any in Europe, 
fortune concentrated on him a singular array of 
honors and of estates. By his four marriages with 
princely and royal houses, Flemish, German, or 
French, he left a family of twelve children, whos 
descendants filled an even larger part in the annals 
of Europe than did the ancestors of William him- 
self. The singular complications of this family 
history must be reserved for a separate appendix 
(see Appendix A) ; but it may be well to note the 
prominent figures of his House who preceded Wil- 
liam as men famous in policy and war. 

The courtly historian of the House of Nassau 
does not pretend to find in the local legends anything 
trustworthy before the eleventh century ; but we 
need not trouble ourselves about the fierce and am- 
bitious chieftains who held the beautiful, wooded 
hill country along the Lahn, on the eastern side of 
the Rhine, one of whom was the Emperor Adolphus 
in the thirteenth century. Otto I., about the close 
of that century, is taken as the stem of the House of 
]N^assau-Dillenburg ; and William himself in his 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 5 

famous Apology opens the history of his House 
with Otto II., 1311. '' It is known to all men/' he 
replies proudly to Philip, " that I am no foreigner 
in the Xetherlands. Count Otto, from whom I de- 
scend in the seventh degree, married the heiress of 
Vianden ; his grandson, Engelbert I., married the 
heiress of Leek and Breda ; and my ancestors have 
for centuries held baronies and lordships in Brabant, 
Flanders, Holland, and Luxemburg." 

Engelbert I. (1401:), marrying Joanna, only 
child of the Lord of Polanen and Leek, brought into 
the House estates in Brabant ; and made Breda the 
home of this branch of the family. He became a 
leading: noble in the court of Bursundy. His erand- 
son, Engelbert 11. , in the second half of the fifteenth 
century, played a still larger part, both as soldier 
and diplomatist, in the service of the Dukes of Bur- 
gundy and the Empire, He decided the victory of 
Guinegates, 1179, and was Governor of Flanders. 
By a family arrangement, maintained for centuries, 
one branch of the House held the estates in the 
Xetherlands, and the other branch held those in the 
Empire, with cross successions on failure of sons, — 
when a fresh settlement was made. 

On the death of Engelbert 11. , without sons, and 
of his brother John, who had married a daughter of 
the Landgrave of Hesse, the vast Netherlands' pos- 



6 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

sessions of the i!^assaus passed (in 1516) to John's 
elder son Henry ; whilst the Nassau estates in Ger- 
many passed to a younger son, William. This Wil- 
liam, by Juliana of Stolberg, was the father of 
William the Silent. 

Henry, nephew, adopted son and heir of Engel- 
bert II., surpassed both his uncle and his great 
grandfather in magnificence and power. ^^ It was 
he,'' says the Apology, "' who placed the imperial 
crown on the head of Charles V."^ — a service that 
the Emperor never forgot, which he rewarded by 
loading Henry with offices, honors, and great 
charges of State. And, by the favor of Francis I. 
of France, Henry obtained the hand of Claudia, 
sister of Philibert, Prince of Orange-Chalons. 
Philibert, dying without children, left his principal- 
ity to Rene, the son of Claudia and Henry. Thus 
for the first time, in 1530, a Count of Nassau be- 
came Prince of Orange, a petty sovereignty now 
included in the French departnient of Vaucluse. 

Orange, a territory of less than 40,000, acres, 
measuring eight leagues by four, with a population 
of 12,000, engulfed in the papal dominion of Avi- 
gnon, had given the title to a nominal county or 
princedom, as is pretended, from the time of Charles 

* Charles V. was crowned emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1520. 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 7 

the Great ; * but, in fact, it was in later years alter- 
nately occupied by the Emperor or a King of France. 
In the meantime the titular Prince of Orange, who 
only enjoyed his dominions at brief intervals, 
claimed to be a free sovereign, not a feudatory 
either of the Empire or the French Kingdom. The 
barren honor was in later times contested in the 
N^assau family for centuries, and the puny state was 
finally ceded to Louis XIV. in 1713 — the title of 
Prince continuing to be held by descendants of the 
i^assaus. 

Rene of E^assau, inheriting the princedom of 
Orange-Chalons, followed the Emperor in arms and 
at court, as his father Henry and his uncle Philibert 
had done. He was a special favorite of Charles V., 
who made him stadtholder in Holland ; and, in 
1544, gave him high command in the attack on 
France. In this war, at St. Dizier, Rene was killed, 
to the intense grief of the Emperor, who received his 
last breath. By special permission of the Emperor, 
Rene had been empowered to name his heir, and he 
gave all his possessions and his princedom to young 
William, his first cousin, then a boy of eleven. 

It was thus that, from boyhood, this scion of the 

* Charles the Great is better known as Charlemagne. The 
date of his birth is uncertain but is given by some as 742 ; he 
died in 814. 



8 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

princely House of J^assau became entitled to a rank 
and to estates far greater than those of his own 
father or his immediate ancestors. He united in 
himself the inheritance and the titles of the long line 
of Nassau-Dillenburg, his direct forefathers. His 
father who was still alive, acquiesced in his succession, 
at the age of eleven, to the vast and varied possessions 
of the House of E^assau-Breda that had belonged to 
his uncles and his cousins. And, by the testament of 
his cousin Rene he also obtained the titular rank and 
shadowy rights of a Prince of Orange. Thus it 
came to pass that fortune, by a singular conjunction 
of circumstances, showered upon the lad an accumu- 
lation of traditions, titles, and possessions derived 
from a long line of warriors, statesmen, and diplom- 
atists, who had absorbed a constant succession of 
offices, wealthy alliances, and ancestral honors 
granted by Dukes of Burgundy, Emperors, and 
Kings of France. The man who founded the Re- 
public of Holland, in the teeth of such powerful 
kings and princes, was by birth, by tradition, and 
even in barren honor, their equal and their mate. 

William, the father of the Prince of Orange, 
lived entirely as a German count, administering his 
Nassau dominions for forty-three years during the 
stormy period of the Reformation and the religious 
wars under Charles V. His position was one of 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 9 

great difficulty ; pressed alternately by his more 
powerful neighbors of Hesse and of Saxony, between 
Lutheran reformers and Catholic reaction, between 
the Emperor and the rebel League, with a large 
family of fourteen children by two wives, with an 
inheritance burdened by counter-claims, lawsuits, 
and family settlements. He is called " the Rich '' ; 
but he was usually quite poor, and was seldom out of 
difficult situations. On the whole, he steered be- 
tween the rocks with great prudency, moderation, 
justice, and good sense. He avoided Avar, and never 
shone as a soldier ; but his civil rule was fair, gen- 
erous, and popular. Slowly, very gradually, he 
adopted the Reformation ; and about the time of 
young William's birth, he formally accepted for 
N^assau the Lutheran communion. But he did not 
make it a means of personal aggrandisement, as did 
other princes, and he never permitted it to pass into 
persecution. He may be counted a pale, dull, local 
type and forerunner of his illustrious son. 

It was from his mother that William, like Crom- 
well and so many great men, inherited some of his 
noblest gifts. Juliana of Stolberg had been mar- 
ried at fifteen to Count Philip of Hainault, the ward 
of this elder William of Nassau. On the premature 
death of Philip, William, her guardian, who had 
been left a widower by the death of a daughter of 



10 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Count John of Egmont, married Juliana, and took 
charge of all his ward's children. By her he had 
twelve children, of whom William the Silent was the 
eldest, all born in the castle of Dillenburg. She 
was a woman of strong character, of devout spirit, 
and affectionate nature, a Protestant of deep sin- 
cerity, but temperate judgment, an exemplary wife, 
mother, and mistress.^ Her castle was the training 
home of the noble youths of ^Nassau, and she bore a 
long life of calamity and bereavement with heroic 
serenity and courage. She died at the age of 
seventy-seven, having had, by her two husbands, no 
less than seventeen children, and leaving, says Meur- 
sius, more than one hundred and sixty descendants. 
She died only four years before the assassination of 
her eldest born of the Nassaus. Of her five Nassau 
sons, four fell victims in the great struggle, the three 
younger sons dying in battle in her own lifetime. 

The castle of Dillenburg, said to have been built 
about 1240, was a vast and lofty pile rising on a 



* Nothing can be more tender or more touching than the 
letters which still exist from her hand, written to her illus- 
trious sons in hours of anxiety or anguish, and to the last, 
recommending to them with as much earnest simplicity as if 
they were little children at her knee, to rely always, in the 
midst of the trials and dangers which were to beset their 
paths through life, upon the great hand of God. Among the 
mothers of great men, Juliana of Stolberg deserves a foremost 
place." 



FAMILY-EARLY LIFE. H 

rocky bend of the river Dill, a tributary of the Lahn. 
A contemporary print of the sixteenth century shows 
it as a princely fortress of the first rank, with frown- 
ing battlements, towers, barbicans, gatew^ays, and 
outworks, and vast ranges of halls, stores, offices, and 
barracks, capable of holding at least a thousand 
persons. It constantly had to receive visitors of 
rank claiming its hospitality, with a retinue of many 
hundreds of horses, guards, and attendants. Here 
for some fifty years lived Juliana of Stolberg, re- 
nowned as a capable chatelaine. Here all her chil- 
dren were born. After undergoing a series of vicis- 
situdes and attacks, the castle w^as burnt dow^n in the 
last century, and remained a ruin until, in 1872, the 
Wilhelmsthurmj a memorial tower, was built on the 
foundations of the keep, rising from the historic 
rock to a height of about 130 feet. 

The first eleven years of young William's life were 
passed with his father and mother at Dillenburg. In 
1544, upon the death of Rene of Orange, Count 
William took his young son to Brussels, wiiere he 
w^as formally admitted to his great inheritances, the 
father ceding any rights to the Netherlands' honors 
and estates that he might have claimed under the 
family compact. He also consented, avowed Prot- 
estant as he then w^as, that his son should be educated 
at the Brussels court of the Emperor, presided over 



12 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

bj Mary, Queen of Hungary, sister of Charles V., 
and his Regent of the iSTetherlands. Here for nine 
years, he himself tells us, young William was care- 
fully brought up as a Catholic prince, being trained 
for high office, as a peculiar favorite of Charles V., 
who took the strongest interest in him, and gave him 
as tutor Jerome Perrenot, a brother of the famous 
Cardinal Granvelle, destined to be the Prince's bitter 
enemy. Under this tuition William acquired a very 
wide education ; he wrote and spoke with equal ease, 
French, German, Flemish, Spanish, and Latin. 
Charles made him first his page, then gentleman of 
his chamber, kept him near his person, and suffered 
him to be present at audiences and councils about 
affairs of State. The earliest fragment of William's 
that we possess is a letter to the Bishop Granvelle. '^* 
It is in French, dated from Breda, 30th September 
1550, wlien the writer w^as seventeen, and shows the 
young Prince as already full of public business, 
dutiful and affectionate towards the wily prelate 

* Bisliop, afterward Cardinal, Granvelle, was both ecclesi- 
astic and statesman, was a person of great influence in the 
affairs of the Netherlands for fourteen years, from 1550 to 
1564, first as chancellor, and later as chief councillor to Mar- 
garet of Parma. Being unable to carry out all his nefarious 
purposes, he finally witlidrew from tlie Netherlands " in order 
to visit his sick mother " (see below, p. 47). In 1574 he was 
made viceroy of Naples and he was afterwards promoted to 
still higher Italian honors. He died in 1586 at Madrid. 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 13 

with whom he was to wage so deadly a combat, and 
full of devout expressions. It is an autograph, but 
curiously enough unsigned. Perhaps what we have 
is the rough draft of this judicious missive. 

William was just eighteen when Charles gave him 
as a wife Anne of Egmont, only daughter and heiress 
of Maximilian, Count of Buren, one of the magnates 
of the ^N^etherlands and a trusted general of the Em- 
peror. Anne was of his own age and of as noble 
birth ; their union lasted little more than six years, 
much of which was spent by the Prince in the field 
or on public service. The forty-eight of his letters 
to Anne which remain, all written in French, are 
simple, kindly, and confidential, mainly filled with 
details of his military life, his anxieties for his 
troops, his desire to return to his home, his plans, 
and his hopes. The union, which on both sides had 
been an affair of policy and ambition, seems to have 
been happy on the whole ; but the records of it are 
slight, and it had no remarkable character. 

In the same month as his marriage, J^^ty 1551, 
the prince was appointed captain of two hundred 
horse, raised in the following December to two 
hundred and fifty, and in April 1552 {cetat. 19) he 
was named colonel of ten companies of foot. In 
that year the League against the Emperor was 
formed between the German princes, headed by 



14 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Maurice of Saxony, and Henry II. of France. 
Henry invaded Luxemburg and took many strong 
places. The Prince was sent with his command to 
defend the frontier. And from this year he was 
occupied during the summer and autumn months in 
campaigns against the French king, which continued 
in a desultory warfare, and with alternate success 
until the peace of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559.* 

The young soldier of nineteen was first employed, 
under the orders of the Queen-Regent, in raising a 
force in his ancestral Holland provinces, and in May 
1552 we find him organising a force at Thorn on the 
Lower Meuse in Limburg. The numerous letters 
and despatches that pass between himself and the 
Queen, and his letters to his wife at home, exhibit 
him hard at work, and in continual movement on the 
Upper Meuse and the Sambre, but not engaged in 

* The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, April 2 and 3, 1559, ex- 
hibits Philip II. as a master at diplomacy. It was a tripartite 
agreement between England, France, and Italy. The kings 
of the two latter countries pledged themselves to extinguish 
Protestanism, or heresy, in both countries. It was also ar- 
ranged that all the conquests of both parties during the last 
eight years should be restored. "Thus," says Motley, "all 
the gains of Francis and Henry were annulled by a single 
word, and the Duke of Savoy converted, by a dash of the pen, 
from a landless soldier of fortune into a sovereign again." 
The articles in the treaty by which the Gtiises for France and 
Granvelle for the Netherlands agreed to crush heresy with a 
strong hand, were secret. 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 15 

any important action. King Henry's campaign was 
at first a brilliant success; tie burst into Lorraine, 
and took Metz, Toul, Yerdun, which remained part 
of France. The Imperial army may have sufficed to 
protect Luxemburg; but Henry passed southwards 
into Alsace. William was not permitted to lead his 
troops to join the Emperor in his disastrous siege of 
Metz, but was ordered to invade Artois, and after 
taking part in that successful campaign, his force 
was disbanded (November 1552), after he had re- 
ceived from the Queen-Regent a letter of warm ac- 
knowledgment of his services and his zeal. In spite 
of his natural anxiety to see his wife at home, Wil- 
liam did not return, but went on to join the Emperor 
at Thionville, as he was about to raise the disastrous 
siege of Metz, the Prince apparently being bent on 
affairs of his own rather than those of the Empire. 

In the following year (1553) Charles, rousing 
himself from the prostration caused by his diseases 
and his collapse before Metz, and putting his troops 
under Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, made a suc- 
cessful and savage attack on the French in Artois. 
The Prince of Orange was invested with an im- 
portant command, but we do not know what part he 
had in the cruel storm and destruction * of Therou- 

* Charles destroyed Tlierouanne so completely that he act- 
ually erased its name from the map of France, Hesdin fared 
little or no better. 



16 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

aniie and Ilesdin and the wasting of the country 
around. He there saw war in its most pitiless form, 
and he was continuallj receiving, at the hands of the 
Regent and the Emperor, new and superior com- 
mands. 

All through the winter the Prince was engaged 
in organising fresh levies in his own fiefs. In May 
1554 he was appointed first Commissioner at Ant- 
werp, and was summoned to Brussels to consult 
with the Regent ; and in June he received a commis- 
sion as commander of four squadrons of cavalry 
beside his own troop. The campaign of 1554 was 
short, sharp, and somewhat indecisive. The prince 
took part in the campaign of Renti and Bethune, 
which resulted in some successes to the Emperor, 
under the command of Emmanuel Philibert, now 
Duke of Savoy. 

The winter and spring of 1555 were, as usual, 
spent in organising fresh levies, and in July of that 
year the Prince received the signal honor of being 
named by the Emperor Commander-in-Chief of the 
army round Givet, numbering 20,000 men. If we 
can trust the rhetorical and somewhat eulogistic 
Apology, the Prince had held such command more 
than a year before, in the temporary absence of the 
Duke of Savoy. In 1555 he was but little over 
twenty-two years of age, and he was preferred to the 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 17 

command at a critical moment of tlie Emperor's 
career, over the heads of veteran soldiers much senior 
to himself. 

The French had captured Mariemburg * on the 
border of i^amur, and were threatening Namur and 
Brussels. The task of the Prince was to protect 
Brabant, and to recover Mariemburg. He did not 
succeed in the latter, but he effected the former 
object by founding the new fort of Philippeville, on 
a site selected by him and named after the Emperor's 
son. In the Apology we are told how the youthful 
captain was pitted against such veterans as I^evers 
and Coligny, yet he succeeded in building Philippe- 
ville and Charlemont under their very eyes (a leur 
harhe). The campaign was rendered very arduous 
by heavy rains and by the ravages of the plague, 
by the difficulty of obtaining supplies, by shortness 
of money, and the ill-humor and mutinous temper 
of his mercenaries. The archives record an im- 
mense amount of discussion by letter as to the wants 
of the army, as to the site of the new forts, and 
retaliatory raids upon the enemy in France. Though 
continually urged to undertake a forward movement, 
the Prince referred the matter to a council of war, 

* This small town, situated in the southwestern part of Bel- 
gium near the French boundary, is not to be confounded with 
the German Marienburg. 
2 



18 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

with the proverbial result. He held chief command 
of the army round Philippeville for six months from 
22d July 1555 to 27th January 1556, during which 
time he had constructed and garrisoned the new fort 
of Philippeville, of which the site and armament 
was left to his sole discretion. He prevented any 
further invasion into Hainault, but' otherwise accom- 
plished little worthy of note. The one hundred and 
fifty letters that during this period passed between 
himself and the Government at Brussels (at times 
almost daily), exhibit him as laboring with inex- 
haustible energy and adroitness to organise and hold 
together a turbulent army of ill-paid and ill-supplied 
mercenary troops of different nationalities. The 
striking note of his command is prudence ; he ex- 
hibits much more the wariness and patience of a 
diplomatist in a negotiation than the dash and en- 
thusiasm of a Avarrior in a campaign. His letters 
are those of Secretary of State rather than of a 
Commander-in-Chief. At times he is absorbed in 
questions of finance. He is at twenty-two already 
more the statesman than the soldier. 

In the October of 1555 the Prince was summoned 
from this camp to be present at the formal abdication 
by the Emperor of his hereditary dominions in 
favor of his son Philip II. This magnificent and 
elaborate ceremonial fills many a brilliant page in the 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 19 

histories of that age. In the great hall of the palace 
of Brussels, crowded with Knights of the Golden 
Fleece, nobles, prelates, courtiers, and delegates from 
the States, the Emperor appeared, leaning for sup- 
port on the shoulder of the youthful Prince of 
Orange — Charles being, at the age of fifty-five, an 
old man broken by disease and toil. The paternal in- 
terest that the Emperor had shown to the Prince, and 
the confidence he had placed in him now for eleven 
years, thus found a striking expression. And when 
Charles finally resolved to surrender the Imperial 
crown he charged the Prince with the mission to 
Germany. These marks of favor are duly re- 
counted in the Apology^ wherein the Emperor is 
uniformly mentioned in terms of profound respect. 
It would seem that Charles looked forward to his 
pupil and favorite being the mainstay of his son 
Philip, on his new thrones. How many things would 
have gone otherwise had this expectation been ful- 
filled ! For a time, Philip seemed willing to bestow 
on the Prince the confidence that had been given by 
his father. Within a few weeks he was named by 
Philip one of his councillors of State, and in the 
following January, at the first chapter of the Order 
of the Fleece held by Philip at Antwerp, William 
was admitted a Knightj a distinction which his 



20 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

father, the Count of INTassau, had refused on the 
ground of his Protestant faith. 

The Prince returned to his command the day after 
the abdication, and the despatches which he sent to 
Philip contain appeals for money, supplies, and mu- 
nitions, even more urgent than those which he had 
sent to the Emperor and the Regent ; and, if pos- 
sible, they met with an even scantier attention. On 
the 29th December he writes to his wife : " Our 
camp in a state of heartrending destitution ; we 
have not a denier ^ left, and the soldiers are dying 
of hunger and cold, but they give no more heed to us 
at court than if we were all dead. You can imagine 
what a stock of patience I need to have." ^N^othing 
was done on either side during that indecisive cam- 
paign, except that the Prince had effectually pre- 
vented Coligny, his future father-in-law, from ad- 
vancing into the E^etherlands, and by his new forts 
had guaranteed the defence of Brabant. In Jan- 
nary the armies on both sides were disbanded, and 
in February 1556 a hollow and almost nominal truce 
for five years was signed at Vaucelles. 

With the departure of Charles V. to Spain, and 
the installation of Philip II. as king, the career of 
the Prince enters on a new phase. He had hitherto 

* The denier was one-twelfth of the French sou, the latter 
being about equal to one cent. 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 21 

been the pupil and the favorite of one of the great- 
est soldiers and most astute statesmen of that astute 
and warlike age. He was in full possession of vast 
estates, and had the right to be addressed by sover- 
eigns as ^^ My cousin." He kept a regal state in the 
splendid Xassau palace at Brussels, and had palaces 
at Breda and elsewhere. He was attended by nobles 
and pages of gentle birth, who lived at his expense. 
Besides that, he kept open house, and gave magnifi- 
cent entertainment to envoys and foreigners of rank. 
His civil and military offices involved him in enor- 
mous charges. As General-in-Chief, his nominal al- 
lowance had been 500 florins ^ a month, whilst he 
had to spend (he tells his wife) 2500 florins per 
month. In his Apology he declares that his missions 
and military services had cost him more than 1,500,- 
000 florins, that he had never received as pay more 
than 300 florins a month, ^' which was not enough to 
pay the wages of the servants of his tents." This royal 
munificence, both public and private, had seriously 
encumbered even his enormous revenues — a matter 
which he took with a light heart, for he writes to his 
brother Louis : " As in the beginning, so now, and it 
will be for ever after, we come of a race who are very 
bad managers in youth, though we improve as we get 
older. I have cut down the cost of my falconers to 

* The florin of the Netherlands was worth about forty cents. 



22 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

1200 florins, and I hope soon to be out of debt." 
Everything was on the same scale. The twenty-four 
nobles and the eighteen pages who formed his suite, 
the tables loaded day and night with choice dishes 
and Avines, required an army of cooks and servants. 
As a measure of economy he in one day discharged 
twenty-eight cooks, who bore a high reputation as- 
having served in his palace ; and, later on, Philip 
wrote from Spain begging the Prince to let him have 
a certain eminent chef sent from the household at 
Breda. 

The Prince himself was devoted to the chase, to 
falconry and tournaments, to dancing, masquerades, 
and courtly entertainments. His costume and reti- 
nue was on the scale befitting that age and his own 
youth and rank. His personal graciousness and 
courtesy were on a par with his lavish hospitality. 
Even his bitter enemies celebrated his winning man- 
ners and gentle dignity. His character is thus 
drawn by Pontus Payen, a sincere Catholic and 
opponent : — 

Never did arrogant or indiscreet word issue from his mouth, 
under the impulse of anger or other passion ; if any of his 
servants committed a fault, he was satisfied to admonish them 
gently without resorting to menace or to abusive language. 
He was master of a sweet and winning power of persuasion, 
by means of which he gave form to the great ideas within 
him, and thus he succeeded in bending to his will the other 
lords about the court as he chose ; beloved and in high favor 



FAMILY— EARLY LIFE. 23 

above all men with the people, by reason of a gracious man- 
ner that he had of saluting, and addressing in a fascinating 
and familiar way all whom he met. 

The same writer goes on to accuse the Prince of 
want of courage in the field. William of Orange 
proved his real courage in a thousand 'ways, and is 
beyond the sneering depreciation of a Catholic scribe. 
But his indomitable spirit of caution and his genius 
for political finesse unfitted him for supreme com- 
mand in presence of an enemy whose forces he rec- 
ognised to be greatly superior to his own. His 
caution naturally seemed timorous beside the dashing 
chivalry of Egmont and the wild recklessness of 
Louis of Xassau. The same charge of cowardice 
used to be made against Alva ; and it is continually 
brought by the sahreurs against the strategists. It 
is, however, plain that William of Orange never was, 
and with his growing habits of intense caution never 
could have made, a great soldier. His -successes were 
won on the field of indomitable constancy, sagacity, 
faith, and enthusiasm — not on the field of battle. 
Our own Cromwell is one of the very rare examples 
in historv of fierv courage in war, combined with 
inexhaustible caution in policy. 

William, in his youth, as we see him in the fine 
picture of the Museum of Cassel, was a man some- 
what above the medium height, spare, well-propor- 



24 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

tioned, and fairly strong. His complexion was 
rather brown, his auburn hair rose from his brow in 
thick curls, his brown eyes were large, bright, and 
penetrating. His head is well set upon his shoul- 
ders, the forehead open and domed ; the nose was 
long, powerfully formed, and wide at the base. 
The chin is fine, round, and massive, and in early 
youth shaded with a light down of auburn hair. 
The mouth is full, closely set, and rather severe and 
melancholy. The general aspect of the man, even at 
the age of twenty-five, was that of power, self-control, 
intensity, and profound thoughtfulness. Such was 
the young hero who was destined to^ measure his 
genius against the master of the Old and New Spain. 



CHAPTEE II. 

GENERAL AND MINISTER SECOND MARRIAGE 

IN LOYAL OPPOSITION. 

1556-1564. 

The three years of war which Philip II. waged 
with Henry II. of France, and which closed with 
such splendid success, opened with small promise, 
and exhibited some of the worst features of bad 
military organisation. The confusion of mercenaries 
of different race and language, enlisted in small 
bodies by soldiers of fortune, on special terms for 
limited periods, and allowed to pillage in lieu of pay, 
was combined with the minute and jealous interfer- 
ence of a pedantic tyrant. He, like some feeble 
Byzantine Emperor, would keep the conduct of the 
campaign in his own hands, whilst seking to foment 
rather than to remove the sources of separation in the 
heterogeneous elements of his own armies. The 
ultimate success of Philip was due to the magnificent 
qualities of his Spanish veterans, and the military 

25 



26 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

genius of one or two amongst bis generals. To the 
Prince of Orange fell the thankless task of allaying 
discontents, consulting the King on details of the 
campaign, and importuning him for the needed 
money and supplies. 

'No more dreary record of mismanagement can be 
read than the letters that passed between William 
and Philip whilst the Prince was in command of the 
forces round Philippeville. '^ Sire/' writes the 
Prince (5th January 1556), ^Miave pity on the 
Spanish infantry, which, for lack of pay and out of 
sheer starvation, is scouring the low country round, 
plundering the peasantry in mere need of food. 
These disorders I cannot repress, much less can I 
punish them, for necessity has no law." The exas- 
peration (7th January 1556) is such that the 
country people are talking of taking up arms at the 
sound of their tocsins to defend their homes, such 
tumultuous assemblies being likely to prove most 
dangerous. The whole story reads like a page from 
the secret history of the Sublime Porte and its 
starved regiments. 

During the year 1556, following upon the hollow 
truce of Yaucelles, the Prince w^as employed in 
negotiations partly to induce the Estates to grant 
supplies, partly to raise new mercenary forces, partly 
on missions to the German princes. It was a strange 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 27 

task to be imposed on a young soldier of twenty-three, 
but the Prince was from boyhood more politician 
than warrior, and for two years he exerted the whole 
force of his tact and adroitness in obtaining grants 
for the King, and in bringing the German Bitt- 
meisters to accept his niggardly offers. In the bril- 
liant campaign of 1557, the Prince seems to have had 
only a subordinate part. Philip took the field in 
May with a splendid army of Spanish, German, 
Netherland, and English troops, under Emmanuel 
Philibert, Duke of Savoy. It was Count Egmont 
whose impetuous valor decided the great victory of 
St. Quentin (10th August), followed within the 
month by the storming of the fortress, the capture of 
the Constable Montmorency, the Admiral Coligny, 
and a crowd of French nobles. It is clear from three 
letters of the Prince to his wife that he took part in 
the siege of St. Quentin, and the other forts on the 
Oise, — a campaign which carried the arms of Philip 
in triumph to within sixty miles of Paris. But there 
is no evidence whatever of the particular services 
that William rendered ; and accident or the jealousy 
of the King may have deprived him of filling any 
conspicuous place in the campaign. 

l^OY had the Prince any leading part in the bril- 
liant campaign of 1558, which destroyed the military 
power of Prance. He is ordered on service to Namur, 



28 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

to meet the assaults of tlie Duke of Guise in the 
Luxemburg, but we have no record of his operations ; 
whilst, again, the fiery valor of Egmont won the 
splendid victory of Gravelines,^ near Calais, and left 
Henry of France prostrate and disarmed. The mo- 
ment had arrived for negotiations, which had already 
been begun by the crafty Bishop of Arras on the one 
side, and the intriguing Cardinal of Lorraine on the 
other. Within a month of the victory of Gravelines, 
Philip had ordered the Prince to open informal pour- 
parlers f with Marshall St. Andre and the Constable 
Montmorency, both prisoners of St. Quentin, the 
Marshal having been lodged on parole at the Prince's 
palace of Breda. These overtures led to a formal 
negotiation between the two French chiefs on the 
part of Henry, — the Prince, Buy Gomez de Silva, 
and the Bishop of Arras on the part of Philip. The 
treaty of Cateau-Cambresis :j: was eventually con- 
cluded (3d April 1559). 

There is little doubt that the chief hand in this 
masterly negotiation, and in composing the des- 

* On July 12, 1558, Egmont won a brilliant victory over a 
French force of picked men. The dash of the young soldier 
on this occasion was of the picturesque sort that always 
kindles enthusiasm. " Wild delight was felt throughout the 
Netherlands," and " the count was simply worshipped by 
every true Fleming." 

f Conferences. 

X See, note on p. 14. 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 29 

patches which still remain, was that of the astute 
Bishop. But the Prince, though jet but twentj-five, 
had no small part in the work, and we need not treat 
as exaggerated the claim he makes in his Apology. 

" As to this Treaty, which was as disastrous to France as it 
was honorable and profitable to Spain, if I may be allowed to 
speak of my own part, the King could not deny (had he a 
trace of gratitude left) that I was one of the principal instru- 
ments and agents to secure him so advantageous a peace ; for 
it was at the instance of the King himself that I opened the 
first secret negotiations with the Constable and Marshal St. 
Andre. The King assured me that the greatest service in the 
world that I could render him would be to conclude this treaty 
of peace, which he desired to obtain at all cost, in order that 
he might return to Spain." And this is borne out by several 
authorities and by the admission of his Catholic enemy, Pon- 
tus Payen, who says that the Prince "held the first rank 
amongst the envoys of the King, and won high esteem on 
both sides in this affair." 

The Prince was selected as one of the State host- 
ages to reside with Henry, in order to guarantee the 
execution of the Treaty, the other hostages being 
Egmont, the Duke of Alva, and the Duke of 
Aerschot ; and accordingly, William went to Paris in 
June 1559, and it was there that took place the 
famous incident which won him the name of The 
Silent. The story has been admirably told by the 
Catholic, Pontus Payen, and it is precisely confirmed 
by the Apology itself, and other authorities. Pontus 
thus relates: — 



30 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

One day, during a stag-hunt in the Bois de Vincennes, 
Henry, finding himself alone with the Prince, began to speak 
of tlie great number of Protestant sectaries who, during the 
late war, had increased so much in his kingdom to his great 
sorrow. His conscience, said the King, would not be easy 
nor his realm secure until he could see it purged of the " ac- 
cursed vermin," who would one day overthrow his govern- 
ment, under pretence of religion, if they were allowed to get 
the upper hand. This was the more to be feared since some 
of the chief men in the kingdom, and even some princes of 
the blood, were on their side. But he hoped by the grace of 
God and the good understanding that he had with his new 
son, the King of Spain, that he would soon master them. 
The King talked on thus to Orange in tlie full conviction that 
he was cognizant of the secret agreement recently made with 
the Duke of Alva for the extirpation of heresy. But the Prince, 
subtle and adroit as he was, answered the good King in such 
a way as to leave him still under the impression that he, the 
Prince, was in full possession of the scheme propounded by 
Alva ; and under this belief the King revealed all the details 
of the plan arranged between the King of Spain and himself 
for the rooting out and rigorous punishment of the heretics, 
from the lowest to the highest rank, and in this service the 
Spanish troops were to be mainly employed. 

All this the Prince heard without a word and with- 
out moving a muscle. 

This incident not only gave the eloquent Prince his 
paradoxical name, but it proved a great epoch in his 
life, — it is hardly too much to say an epoch in the 
history of his age. Writing more than twenty years 
afterwards in his Apology, he says : — 

I confess tliat I was deeply moved with pity for all tlie 
worthy people who were thus devoted to slaughter, and for 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 31 

the country, to which I owed so much, wherein they designed 
to introduce an Inquisition worse and more cruel than that of 
Spain. I saw, as it were, nets spread to entrap the lords of 
the land as well as the people, so that those whom the Span- 
iards and their creatures could not supplant in any other way, 
might by this device fall into their hands. It was enough for 
a man to look askance at an image to be condemned to the 
stake. Seeing all tliis (he continues in his impetuous way) I 
confess that from that hour I resolved with my whole soul to 
do my best to drive this Spanish vermin from the land ; and 
of this resolve I have never repented, but believe that I, my 
comrades, and all who have stood with us, have done a worthy 
deed, fi,t to be held in perpetual honor. 

It is possible that the desperate struggle of twenty 
years may have somewhat colored the Prince's 
memory, and that his conversion from being a mag- 
nificent prince and a trusty servant of the King of 
Spain into an ardent champion of liberty of con- 
science and national independence, may not have 
been quite so sudden as he had come to think it. And, 
as we shall see, the Apology was not at all throughout 
the work of his own pen. But, again, Pontus Payen 
tells the story almost exactly as does Orange himself. 

The Prince, having thus wrung his secret from the King, 
maintained his composure for two or three days, and then ob- 
tained leave to make a journey to the Netherlands on private 
business of importance. No sooner had he reached Brussels 
than he explained to his intimate friends what he had heard 
in the Bois de Vincennes, giving a sinister meaning to the ex. 
cellent purposes of the two Kings, wlio (he said) designed to 
exterminate the great chiefs so as to fill their own treasuries 
by confiscations, and ultimately to setup an absolute tyranny 



32 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

under pretence of extirpating heres}-. And when he left 
the city, he counselled them to make the withdrawal of the 
Spanish troops a formal demand in the States-General about 
to be held at Ghent. 

This is tlie point at which the whole life of the 
Prince receives a great change. lie was now twenty- 
six, when he enters on a resolute, but very guarded, 
career of resistance to the projects of Philip. His 
first combination (and one, as we shall see, which 
completely failed) was to form a party of constitu- 
tional opposition headed by the great nobles of the 
country, and resting on the historic rights of the 
provinces and the States-General. His ideas at this 
period are fairly stated in the Apology. Xot only 
was he shocked by the cruelties inflicted on " the poor 
people who allowed themselves to be burned," but he 
saw such signs of insurrection even amongst the 
higher nobility as presaged a Civil War like that 
from which France had so cruelly suffered. He was 
too much exposed to the arm of Philip to defy him 
openly ; and the King knew him to be so able and so 
powerful a magnate that he did not care to drive him 
into rebellion. In a Chapter of the Order of the 
Golden Fleece the Prince secured the election of 
Hoogstraeten and Montigny, powerful Xetherland 
nobles, against the known wishes of Philip. He 
urged on the States to press for tlie withdrawal of the 
Spanish troops, and lie specially advised them to 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 33 

make this withdrawal a condition of voting supplies. 
Thus, he told them, they would gain a hundred times 
more than by humble supplications. Here we have 
the policy of our Long Parliament ^ eighty years 
later. 

Philip, who was now resolved on his departure for 
Spain, was obliged to temporise. lie gave evasive 
replies ; appointed Orange and EgTQont nominal com- 
manders of the Spanish contingent, their real leader 
being Julian Romero. Orange was commissioned as 
Governor of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, with a 
donation of 40,000 crowns (also purely nominal). 
When Philip set forth in great state for Spain (from 
w^hence he never returned) he was attended by the 
nobles, whom he solemnly embraced. Then turning 
to Orange, he upbraided the Prince for the refusal of 
the States to vote supplies. This, said the Prince, 
was the act of the States. " No los estados ma vos, 
vos, vos/^-f cried the King, a memoir-writer declares, 
shaking the Prince's wrist. For once Philip spoke in 
his wrath more truthfully than was his habit in af- 
fairs of State. 



* This was the parliament that carried on the civil war in 
England against Charles I. It assembled November 3, 1640, 
and was forcibly dissolved by Cromwell in 1653, but it was 
twice restored in 1659, and was finally dissolved in March, 
1660. 

t " Not the States, but you, you, you I " 
3 



34: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

When Philip withdrew to Spain, where his pur- 
pose was to secure the absohite ascendency of himself 
and of Catholic orthodoxy, he left the isTetherlands in 
a most uneasy condition. The great nobles had im- 
poverished themselves in peace and in war with 
ruinous excesses ; the burghers resented the arbitrary 
suppression of their historic privileges, the constant 
exactions of the Government, and the maintenance 
in their midst of 3000 Spanish soldiers; whilst the 
Reformation was constantly making way both in the 
Dutch and the Belgian provinces. After long delib- 
eration, Philip had appointed as his Regent his half- 
sister, Margaret, Duchess of Parma, a natural 
daughter of the Emperor Charles V.. Margaret was 
a woman of masculine nature, devoted to Philip and 
to the Church, of much capacity for affairs, energetic, 
provident, and laborious. A complex system of three 
councils was instituted to assist, control, and counter- 
balance each other — the principal Council of State 
consisting of Perronet, Bishop of Arras, Berlaymont, 
and Yiglius, devoted agents of Philip, with Egmont 
and Orange as titular members. It was soon found 
that Egmont and Orange were not admitted to the 
inner camarilla.'^ Business was practically carried 
on by the Bishop, a minister of consummate industry, 
craft, and perseverance, who, with his two creatures, 

* Chamber. 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 35 

was the trusted confidant of the Regent. Orange and 
Egmont were only used by them to give some char- 
acter to the Council of State, to induce the States to 
vote supplies, and to figure as the nominal com- 
manders of the Spanish forces. Orange, on his side, 
whilst remaining loyal to the Regent, used his posi- 
tion to check the advance of absolutism and persecu- 
tion. In the formal instructions given to him on his 
appointment as Governor of the three Provinces, and 
in the secret memorandum accompanying it, he was 
ordered, he tells us, to put to death " some worthy 
people suspected of religion. This his conscience 
would not allow him to do. And he sent them private 
warning of their danger, holding it right to obey God 
rather than man." 

By the death of his father, William, Count of 
[N^assau (6th October 1559), the Prince, as the eldest 
son, now became chief of the House of l^assau- 
Dillenburg. In a fine letter to his younger brother, 
Louis, he expresses his grief for the loss of so excel- 
lent a father, urges them all to follow in his footsteps 
for the honor of the House, ^^ and this will be easy, if 
they all dwell together in love and mutual support. 
He will do his part to help them, to console their 
mother to whom they owe so much, and to be a father 
to the sisters who have lost their own." By the family 
compact, possession of the German estates passed to 



36 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

John, the next brother, and the only one of his 
brothers who survived the Prince; but Orange still 
remained Count of Nassau, v^ith a titular interest in 
the i^assau honors and estates. 

The Prince had now been a widower for a year and 
a half, and he was contemplating a second marriage. 
Anne of Egmont died in March 1558. Orange had 
been at Frankfort on a mission to surrender the 
Imperial crown, and incidentally to attach the 
German princes to the service of Philip. On his 
return he found his young wdfe at the point of death, 
was himself prostrated with fever and nervous 
spasms, and writes to the Bishop to pour out his 
poignant grief. There is every reason to believe in the 
sincerity of his affection and of his sorrow, though it 
must be remembered that for the greater part of their 
six years of married life, the Prince had spent most 
of his time on service away from home. From camp 
he had been wont to write to her : — " All in the world 
I have is yours " ; " Next to God, you are the one I 
love best, and if I did not know that your love for me 
is the same, I could not be so happy as I am '^ ; " May 
God give us both the grace to live always in this affec- 
tion without any guile." The marriage gave birth to 
two children, Philip-William, Count of Buren, after- 
wards Prince of Orange, the degenerate, Spaniard- 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 37 

ised, son of his father,"^ and Mary, ultimately 
Countess of Hohenlohe. f 

It would have been contrary to all the ideas and 
habits of the age for a young man of princely rank to 
remain long sinMe. Orange himself was of an 
amorous temperament, keenly alive to the future of 
his great name and House ; and already, as he admits 
and almost boasts, burdened with an expenditure of a 
million and a half of florins in peace or war. He 
regarded a great alliance to be a natural duty of his 
rank and position. As he told Philip, his friends and 
relations were importunate for him to marry, consid- 

* In 1568, Philip- William was kidnapped by emissaries of 
Pliilip II. He liowever accepted the situation with joy. The 
brilliant festivities that were held for the purpose of pleasing 
him, fully accomplislied their purpose. He was educated by 
Philip II., and by this Jesuitical training he was completely 
transformed. " When he returned to the Netherlands," says 
Motley, " after a twenty years' residence in Spain, it was diffi- 
cult to detect in his gloomy brow, saturnine character, and 
Jesuitical habits, a trace of the generous spirit which charac- 
terized that race of heroes, the house of Orange-Nassau." 

f As widower. Orange formed a connection with Eva Eliver, 
and by her he had a natural son, Justin of Nassau, born Sep- 
tember, 1559, who became a famous seaman and bravely 
seconded his brother Maurice and Barneveldt in the long strug- 
gle. Though only twenty-five at his father's death, Justin 
was niade Admiral of Holland and Zealand ; he took part in 
many desperate enterprises ; had an important sliare in the 
Dutch support of England against the Armada ; was joined 
with Barneveldt in his mission to Henry IV. and to Elizabeth ; 
and was pronounced by Lord H. Seymour to be "a man very 
wise, subtle, and cunning." 



38 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

ering bis youth, and the interests of his House. On 
the failure of two previous proposals, the Prince flung 
himself with extraordinary vehemence and obstinacy 
to secure an alliance even more brilliant and promis- 
ing, which brought him a great position, much shame, 
long anxiety, and his own valiant and astute succes- 
sor, Maurice of Nassau, ultimately Prince of Orange. 

The bride whom the Prince resolved to win was 
Anne, daughter and heiress of that Maurice, Duke 
of Saxony, who had so rudely shaken the very throne 
of Charles V., and granddaughter of Philip, Land- 
grave of Hesse, one of the most ardent chiefs of the 
Reformation. Anne, now in her seventeenth year, 
not ill-looking, but ill-made, somewhat lame, of a 
violent nature which ended in madness, had been 
brought up at Dresden by her uncle, Augustus, 
Elector of Saxony, as a Protestant. She would have 
a considerable fortune, was entitled to a great inheri- 
tance, and her rank and connections offered the most 
splendid idliance in Germany. The Prince had never 
seen her ; she had no pretensions to charm ; the 
obstacles to such a match were formidable. But the 
very difficulties seemed to spur him to action, whilst 
his politic spirit foresaw the advantages of an alliance 
with the great and almost independent magnates of 
Central Germany. 

Oransjo was a Catholic, the subject, counsellor, and 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 39 

minister of the most Catholic King, having all his 
domains within the power of Philip, who held hid 
whole life and fortunes, as it were, in pledge for his 
loyalty and his orthodoxy. Anne was a Protestant, 
the daughter of the old Emperor's most dangerous 
enemy, niece and granddaughter of two devoted chiefs 
of the Lutheran movement. The negotiations for this 
adventurous marriage, which were carried on for 
nearly two years, form a strange tripartite battle 
between the Prince and his family, the German Pro- 
testant chiefs, and Philip with his agents^ Margaret 
and Granvelle. The old Landgrave was furious that 
his granddaughter should marry a Papist, Philip and 
his Council were shocked that his subject should 
dream of marrying a heretic, the daughter of 
malignant Lutherans and enemies of his House. The 
Prince was forced to compromise, and he needed all 
his consummate powers of diplomacy: — to satisfy 
Philip that he would remain Catholic, and that his 
wife should live ^' like a Catholic " ; to satisfy the 
Elector that he was no enemy of the Lutherans and 
that he would not force Anne's conscience; and withal 
to avoid giving the Elector, the Landgrave, Philip, or 
the Duchess any formal or written pledge whatever. 
The bride's relations wrote long despatches in 
praise of the Confession of Augsburg; the Prince 
replied gaily that a young wife had better read 



40 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

romances than theology. lie wrote to the old Land- 
grave with almost evangelical unction ; he wrote to 
the King protestations of orthodoxy and loyalty. Wil- 
liam made several journeys into Germany, where he 
won over the Duke of Saxony, many of the great 
chiefs, and presently Anne herself. The long, subtle, 
and astute despatches which passed between Brussels, 
Spain, and Dresden, in French, German, and Span- 
ish, fill hundreds of pages of the printed archives. A 
volume would hardly exhaust the ingenious and char- 
acteristic turns of the long negotiation. The Bishop 
is subtle, far-sighted, politic ; Philip is suspicious, 
hostile, but timid ; the Elector is blunt, practical, and 
secretly anxious to got his niece off his hands and 
out of the Empire ; the Landgrave is bigoted, obsti- 
nate, and angry ; the Prince is diplomatic, astute, 
eloquent, and resolute. He makes profuse promises, 
but none that he cannot keep without dishonor. lie 
protests that he is a Catholic and means to remain a 
Catholic. He protests that he can respect the Luther- 
anism of his wife and of her relations. In all this he 
spoke substantial truth, and lie fairly fulfilled his 
pledges. ^^ T will say no more," he haughtily replied 
at the wedding ceremony, '^ than that I will act as I 
shall answer hereafter to God and to man." 

Another volume might be filled with the story 
of the wedding, which took place at Leipsic in AugiTst 




The marriage festivities of Prince William and Anne of Saxony.— Page 41. 

William the Silent, 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 41 

1561. It was splendid even for that age — adorned 
with royalties, serene highnesses, dukes and prelates, 
in abundance. All Germany rang with the story of 
the gathering and its pomp. William, who was now 
twenty-eight, and had been a widower more than three 
years, took with him a retinue almost royal. It is 
said that more than five thousand persons were 
invited and eleven hundred horses were required. He 
had desired to have the nobles of the ISTetherlands of 
his party; but the Duchess refused this, and per- 
mitted only Baron Montigny to go as representing the 
King. Philip, ^^ willing to wound and yet afraid to 
strike,'' dared not show his w^rath in public; he sent 
his formal compliments and 3000 crowns to present a 
ring to the bride. The ceremony was performed with 
strict Lutheran rites ; festivities were continued for 
days ; and the young bride Avent to her new home at 
Breda, passionately fond of her courtly spouse — '' as 
happy as a queen,'' she wrote to her grandfather. 

The Prince had indeed won a victory and a bride 
which were to cost him dear. A marriage of policy 
was at that time a matter of course to a man of the 
highest rank aspiring to a great career. And at this 
period of life William, as he confesses, was a man of 
the world, a man of his age. The alliance with the 
great chiefs of Lutheran Germany offered him a 
source of permanent strength. He had no kind of 



42 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

purpose at this time himself to become Lutheran, or 
any other type of Protestant. He intended to conform 
to the Catholic rites, and he did so conform for years 
afterwards. He respected the Lutherans and even the 
Calvinists ; but they did not satisfy him. He abhorred 
persecution, but he loathed fanaticism, anarchy, and 
violence. He had no intention of fomenting rebellion 
in the ]!^etherlands, nor of converting it to Protest- 
antism. But he did contemplate a combination be- 
tween the nobles of the Netherlands and of Germany 
to stem the autocracy of Philip and to drive back the 
threatened Inquisition. As an English agent wrote, 
the marriage had made the Prince a power. He had 
no dogmatic conviction as to any one of the competing 
creeds; and in marrying a Protestant princess, he 
meant to retain a Catholic household, to conform to 
the Catholic Church, and yet to secure the alliance of 
Protestant chiefs. Throughout he acted as politician, 
not as theologian. He was a diplomatist, not a 
reformer ; a statesman, not a preacher ; a man of the 
world, not a saint. As he passed into middle life and 
the terrific struggle which absorbed and killed him, he 
grew to a deeper conscience and a more spiritual 
temper. But, at twenty-eight, he w^as entirely and 
solely a politic Prince seeking to found a party of 
honest patriots. 

For a time, and until Philip resorted to the terrible 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 43 

weapon of an overwhelming Spanish army, the consti- 
tutional opposition to persecution and absolutism that 
Orange organised had a very real success. On his 
accession the King, by the advice of Granvelle, had 
reissued the edicts of 1550 published by Charles V. 
for the suppression of heresy, — " to stamp out this 
plague by the roots," said the preamble of the Em- 
peror's decree."^ This atrocious code of persecution 
had not been regularly enforced, and every attempt to 
enforce it added to the public irritation, ^ext, a 
complete reorganisation of the ecclesiastical dioceses 
of the [N^etherlands w^as effected by the Popes, Paul 

* A few lines will exhibit the spirit of this edict : " No one 
shall print, write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy, or give in 
churches, streets, or other places, any book or writing made 
by Martin Luther, John Ecolampadius, Ulrich 2uinglius, Mar- 
tin Bucer, John Calvin, or other heretics reprobated by the 
Holy Church. . . . We forbid all lay persons to converse or 
dispute concerning the Holy Scriptures unless they have duly 
studied theology and been approved by some renowned uni- 
versity. . . . That such perturbators of the general quiet are 
to be executed, to wit : the men with the sword and the 
women to be buried alive, if they do not persist in their errors ; 
if they do persist in them, then they are to be executed with 
fire ; all their property in both cases to be confiscated to the 
crown." 

It may be of interest also to add that an edict issued at 
Worms in 1521, described Luther as " not a man, but a devil 
under the form of a man, and clothed in the dress of a priest 
the better to bring the human race to hell and damnation ; 
therefore all his disciples are to be punished with death and 
forfeiture of all their goods." 

Thus did ** these Christians love one another " ! 



44: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

IV. and Pius IV., in 1559-60; by tMs three new 
Archbishoprics were created, and the fifteen bish- 
oprics were divided amongst them. By this system a 
new form of inquisition into heresy was practically 
created. Granvelle was made Archbishop of the 
principal see, that of Mechlin, and was shortly hon- 
ored with the Red Hat, so that he is henceforth 
known as the Cardinal. To all this scheme of reac- 
tion Orange offered a resolute opposition. He pro- 
tested in Council, remonstrated with the Regent, 
Granvelle, and the King against the persecution of 
heretics, and incessantly, in public and in private, 
pressed on the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, on 
whom hung the whole force of the Spanish tyranny. 
In these efforts Orange was supported by Egmont 
and most of the great nobles. He and Egmont re- 
signed their nominal command of the Spanish troops, 
and formally demanded in council their withdrawal 
from the country. The Regent, the Bishop, and at 
last the most devoted servants of the King saw that 
government could not be carried on without this con- 
cession. Philip yielded to necessity, and at last the 
Spaniards were dismissed home. The Cardinal now 
felt all the difficulties of his position. Egmont treated 
him with defiance and open contempt; and the old 
intimacy between Orange and Granvelle was at an 
end. The Prince and Egmont wrote formally to 



Loyal opposition. 45 

Philip to insist on their resignation of the Council, 
unless they were admitted to its real deliberations. 
Recriminations between Orange and the Cardinal 
were constantly despatched to Madrid. A secret dip- 
lomatic duel was waged between them. The Cardinal 
inveighs against '^ the League '' formed amongst the 
nobles to oppose their King, and against their leader 
and chief, who, he astutely suggests, might be sent 
away and made governor of Sicily. At last, the wily 
Prelate recognised the full power of the grown man, 
whom he had known and loved as a boy and then as 
his own apt pupil and colleague. 

The Prince is a dangerous man (he wrote to Philip) , subtle, 
politic, professing to stand by the people, and to champion 
their interests, even against your edicts, but seeking only the 
favor of tlie mob, giving himself out sometimes as a Catholic, 
sometimes as a Calvinist or Lutheran. He is a man to under- 
take any enterprise in secret which his own vast ambition 
and inordinate suspicion may suggest. Better not leave such 
a man in Flanders. Give him a magnificent embassy or a 
viceroy alty, or perhaps call him to your own court. As to 
Egmont, he has been led away by Orange ; but he is honest, 
a good Catholic, and can easily be brought round, by appeal- 
ing to his vanity and his jealousy of the Prince. 

These invectives of the Cardinal were not without 
justification. From this point certainly Orange was 
incessantly working to form some alliance that might 
enable the Netherlands to baffle the Spanish tyrant. 
He turned, now to the Lutheran princes of Germany 



46 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

now to the Huguenots of France, now to the Queen of 
England. He rallied the Flemish nobles in confer- 
ence, sent Montigny to Spain to remonstrate with the 
King ; when Philip peremptorily orders a force to be 
raised to help the King of France against the 
Huguenots, the Prince in Council succeeded in resist- 
ing the attempt. A scheme is even formed to obtain 
the annexation of Brabant to the Empire. Defying 
the royal opposition, the Prince goes to the coronation 
of the Emperor Maximilian at Frankfort. There and 
elsewhere he carries on negotiations with German 
chiefs. Margaret and Philip are warned that he has 
some great design on hand. Whatever it was, no solid 
alliance was effected. At the same time, he is in rela- 
tions with Elizabeth's agents, Throckmorton and 
Gresham. But neither Elizabeth nor the German 
princes were willing to engage in an open defiance of 
Spain. 

The hostility to the Cardinal waxed fiercer day by 
day. Egmont and other nobles treated him with 
haughty contempt. The people filled the streets with 
pasquinades and burlesques. Orange and Egmont 
Avorked incessantly against him. As early as 1561, 
they had formally urged his recall. Montigny's mis- 
sion had the same object. Throughout the year 1563 
a series of despatches were addressed to Philip signed 
by Orange, Egmont, and Horn, formally demanding 



LOYAL OPPOSITION. 47 

the withdrawal of the Cardinal, and refusing to serve 
with him in Council. The Regent herself began to 
weary of her imperious factotum. Philip remained 
obstinate, perplexed, and irresolute. At his side rivals 
of the Cardinal insinuated doubts and suspicions. 
The savage Duke of Alva, who now appears upon the 
scene, stoutly supported Granvelle. ' ' My blood boils, 
and I am like a madman," he wrote, '' when I read 
the letters of these Flemings. Let them be chastised. 
But, as that is not possible yet, divide them, and draw 
off Egmont. As to those whose heads are to he cut off, 
it is necessary to dissemble." Philip did dissemble. 
His creatures wrote from Spain to the Cardinal advis- 
ing him to withdraw. At last, in a secret letter, 
recently discovered, the King counselled his Minister 
" to ask for leave of absence in order to visit his 
mother." The Cardinal took the hint, and early in 
1564 he finally quitted Brussels, having been for 
nearly five years the real ruler of the Netherlands. 

The country breathed more freely. The Spanish 
troops, the secret Consulta^ the Cardinal_, were all 
gone ; and Orange and his League had won in their 
first great bout. The nobles were intoxicated with 
delight ; the people exulted ; even the Begent seemed 
glad to be rid of her master. The Prince lost no time 
in consolidating his victory. It was quite true that 
he had formed a real " League," but it was not at all 



48 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

confined to the nobles, nor indeed to the nobles of the 
Netherlands. Through his own family and his new 
Saxon alliances he was incessantly organising the 
active co-operation of German Protestant princes. 
But his ideas were also to bring the people into the 
struggle. He placed before himself, we are told, three 
main objects: — 

1. To obtain regular meetings of the States-Gen- 
eral. 

2. To organise a real, single, and efficient Cjouncil 
of State that should be the supreme source of govern- 
ment. 

3. To obtain a relaxation of the persecution of 
heresy. 

His aim was very much that of our own Long Parli- 
ament eighty years later, and so far it had been an 
entire success. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION". 

1564-1567. 

We now enter on the crucial struggle, with religion 
at its centre, which absorbed the last twenty years of 
the Prince's life, and in the end closed it by the 
assassin's bullet. Philip, the Spanish troops, the 
Consulta, the Cardinal, had all in turn withdrawn in 
face of the growing force of the Peformation, and the 
widespread indignation they each aroused. They had 
withdrawn — but only to gain time, and for a far more 
deadly spring. Silently, in the recesses of Spain, 
Philip was organising a more crushing persecution, a 
far stronger alien army, and martial law under the 
ruthless Alva. 

It must be remembered that in 1564 Protestantism 

itself was only in its first generation, everywhere in a 

state of flux and of rudiment. All persons well past 

middle life had been baptized and bred up as Cath- 

4 49 



60 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

olics. The Council of Trent had only just formulated 
its final doctrines ; the Church of England was still in 
the making ; in the ^Netherlands, in England, in most 
parts of Germany, the Protestants were still in a min- 
ority, and themselves divided into hostile sects. In 
Erance, Protestantism had become to a great extent 
a struggle between political parties. And, almost 
everywhere in Europe, those who were charged with 
the duty of government (except the Spanish and 
Papal fanatics) regarded the various types of Protes- 
tantism from the political, not from the spiritual, 
aspect. This was pre-eminently true of William of 
Orange, who — even more than Elizabeth of England, 
and quite as much as Henry of ^N^avarre — placed 
peace, order, and religious compromise above any 
question of Bible, doctrine, or worship. 

Pontus Payen, a sincere Catholic, loyalist, and 
admirer of the Cardinal, has thus painted the religion 
of the Prince, with a pen hostile, indeed, but not 
purely partisan. He writes in his Memoirs about this 
time : — 

As to religion, he behaved with such discretion that the 
most close observers could not decide which way he inclined. 
The Catholics thought him a Catholic ; the Lutherans, a 
Lutheran. He heard mass daily, whilst his wife and his 
daughter made public profession of the Lutheran heresy, even 
in his presence, without any objection from him. He con- 
demned the rigidness of our theologians in maintaining the 
constitutions of the Church without making a single conces- 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 51 

sion to the Reformers. He blamed the Calvinists as provok- 
ing sedition and strife, yet he spoke with horror of the edict 
of the Emperor that sentenced them to death ; for he held it 
to be cruelty to kill any man simply for maintaining an er- 
roneous opinion. He used to say that in all matters of religion, 
punishment should be reserved to God alone, much as the 
rude German who said to the Emperor, "Sire, your concern 
is with the bodies of your people, not with their souls." In 
short, the Prince would have liked to see established a fancy 
kind of religion of his own, half-Catholic half -Lutheran, 
which would satisfy both sides. Indeed, if you look at his 
inconsistency on religious questions, as shown in his speeches 
and despatches, you will see that he put the State as some- 
thing above the Christian religion, which in his eyes was a 
political invention to keep the people steady to their duty by 
the fear of God, so that orthodoxy was to him neither more 
nor less than the ceremonies, divinations, and superstitions 
that Numa Pompilius introduced in old Rome to tame the 
fierce and too warlike temper of his Romans. 

The practical dilemmas that beset the task of gov- 
ernment in such an age were early brought home to 
the Prince in his own principality of Orange. The 
new views had long been introduced there from the 
Calvinist centres in Dauphiny ; and the ^'Orange nur- 
sery '^ had been used as a seat of propaganda. Violent 
contests had arisen between the two factions. The 
situation was one of extraordinary difficulty. The 
State of Orange was engulfed in the papal territory 
of AvignoUj and was close to the dominions of the 
French King; from either of them it could be over- 
whelmed or absorbed. The Prince was there a petty 
Catholic sovereign, dreading religious disturbances 



52 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

above everything. From 1551 to 1559 he had been 
dispossessed of his dominion. On his restoration he 
felt himself obliged to forbid public preaching ; for, as 
early as 1560, he had received remonstrances from the 
Pope and from the Kegent in Brussels calling on him 
to restrain the disorders. He replies to the Duchess 
that he has ordered his officers to permit nothing con- 
trary to '' our true and ancient faith." He writes 
also to Granvelle to assure him that he will firmly put 
down the disorders '^ so injurious to entire Christen- 
dom; if he must use force, he would rather resort to 
the Pope than to the French King." The orders of the 
Prince (as he probably foresaw or desired) remained 
a dead letter; and the reform went on. In 1561, he 
sends fresh remonstrances ; but his principal official in 
Orange himself joins the Protestants. The Pope re- 
newed his complaints, whereupon after three months 
deliberation came a stately and diplomatic letter in 
Latin from Orange to the Pope, in which he renews 
his own purpose to maintain " the orthodox and cath- 
olic doctrine we have received from our fathers, and 
to punish with prison and confiscation those who 
openly or secretly teach the contrary." The sonorous 
missive may have been drafted by an ecclesiastic ; it 
was never intended to be seriously enforced. 

Nothing came of these protestations and edicts, and 
the town of Orange became a hotbed of the new sect 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 53 

under Montbrun, a Protestant chief from Dauphiny. 
The Prince took no serious steps to suppress the re- 
form. In December 1563, we have a fresh rescript 
from the Pope in solemn and affectionate warning to 
his '^ dilecte iili ! " about the horrors still permitted in 
his princedom — '^ attende quam indignum sit domi- 
nari in urbe ilia tua tarn manifestum hereticum.'' " 
If these abominations cannot be purged out, the Pope 
himself must intervene and throw the whole respon- 
sibility of what happens on the Prince. If the lan- 
guage of William is tortuous, his acts are fair, and 
probably generous. He was still a Catholic, and a 
determined enemy of disorder; but nothing would 
induce him to be a party to persecution for belief. 
Had he boldly announced this to the Pope and the 
Ministers of Philip, his little principality would have 
been overrun in a week, and the reformers exter- 
minated in blood. As usual, he temporises, comprom- 
ises, promises, prevaricates — and saves for the time a 
small people from the tormentors. f 

* " My dear son ! see what a shame that so pronounced a 
heretic should rule in that city of yours ! " 

f The history of the petty princedom of Orange in all these 
years as narrated by La Pise, Arnaud, and others, is a tale of 
cruel vicissitudes. It was alternately overrun by forces of the 
Pope, the French King, and the Huguenot partisans. It was 
only at intervals even in the nominal control of the Prince, 
and he rarely liad any effective authority there. The Protes- 
tants more than once dispossessed the Catholics and dese- 



54 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

So soon as the Cardinal had finally withdrawn, 
Orange, with Egmont and Horn, returned to the 
Council, where they worked with energy and decision. 
The Prince obtained a paramount influence, devoting 
all his skill as a courtier to the Duchess, and toiling 
from morning till night. Friendly letters pass be- 
tween Philip and the Prince. A party of ^' Cardinal- 
ists " still struggled to carry out the edicts against 
heresy, which the Prince set himself to checkmate. 
Philip, not yet ready with his great scheme, continued 
to insist doggedly on the execution of the edicts; the 
Duchess, under the influence of the Prince, replying 
that it w^as impracticable, owing to the numbers of the 
new sects. Orange was now working to form a league 
between the Flemish and Holland Provinces. It was 
decided to send Egmont in person to represent to 
Philip the state of affairs. William exerted all his 
eloquence. " Tell the King,'' said he, '^ that whole 



crated their churches ; and the Catholics retaliated with tor- 
ture and massacre. A horrible sack of the town and carnage 
took place in 1563, and a second massacre in 1571. The aim 
of the Prince clearly was to effect a pacification and to estab- 
lish a compromise, giving liberty of worsliip and churches to 
each party. But he was at the mercy of his mighty neigh- 
bors ; and he can hardly be held responsible for whatever was 
done. It is one long story, says the Protestant historian, " of 
martyrdoms, wars, massacres, arson, pillage, treacheries, 
usurpations, invasions, dragonnades " — a miniature copy of 
Alva's reign of terror. 



THE PEOTESTANT REVOLUTION. 55 

cities are in open revolt against the prosecutions, and 
that it is impossihle to enforce the decrees here. As 
for myself, I shall continue to hold by the Catholic 
faith ; but I will never ffive anv color to the tvrannical 
claim of kings to dictate to the consciences of their 
people, and to prescribe the form of religion that they 
choose to impose. Call the King's attention to the 
corruption that has crept into the administration of 
justice. Let the Government be reformed, the Privy 
Council and the Council of Finance, and increase the 
authoritv of the Council of State.'' 

Egmont went to Spain (1565), and was received by 
Philip with ostentatious honor, evasive words, and 
mendacious promises. " The end will show the whole 
truth," wrote Orange to his brother. He felt sure that 
Egmont had been duped, and made him feel this. It 
was so. The King redoubled his secret orders to the 
Duchess. He would lose a hundred thousand lives 
rather than surrender on the jwint of religion. Let 
the edicts be executed. The correspondence that 
passed from Spain to Brussels in the three years be- 
tween the withdrawal of the Cardinal and the arrival 
of Alva forms a monument of bigotry, duplicity, 
thirst for blood, and incurable bad faith. Every scrap 
of these endless despatches in Spanish, French, or 
Italian that pass between Philip, the Eegent, the 
Cardinal, and their agents, bet^veen Madrid, Rome, 



56 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Besangon, and Brussels, still remain to disclose to us 
their infernal secrets. ^' Maintain religion, chastise 
all who act against it ; nothing gives me a greater 
pleasure," writes Philip (29th September 1561). 
" He is grieved to learn that the people should anger 
at the burning of a heretic " (25th I^ovember 1564). 
'^ He urges the Inquisitors to fresh activity; he will 
spare neither money nor life to maintain the faith " 
(4th October 1565). 

Philip at last was ready, and he spoke out in a 
fierce rescript from Segovia (17th October 1565) : — 

As to the Inquisition, my will is that it be enforced by the 
Inquisitors, as of old and as is required by all law, human 
and divine. This lies very near my heart, and I require you 
to carry out my orders. Let all prisoners be put to death, 
and suffer them no longer to escape through the neglect, 
weakness, and bad faith of the judges. If any are too timid 
to execute the edicts, I will replace them by men who have 
more heart and zeal. 

This rescript was written in French, no doubt as 
being formal instructions to be shown to the authori- 
ties in the l^etherlands. At the same time he sent 
other long despatches to the Duchess in Spanish, in- 
sisting on the Inquisition as a sine qua non of govern- 
ment, and that all judges and officers should assist the 
Inquisitors. The Duchess remonstrates, declares that 
it is impossible to execute his orders. The Inquisition 
is hateful to the people. The governors of provinces 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 57 

declare that they will not burn 50,000 or 60,000 
persons; they prefer to resign. Orange, Egmont, de 
Berghes are amongst the most resolute opponents; 
they insist on retiring. Every day the irritation 
grows deeper. In letter after letter the bewildered 
Regent pour out her alarms, implores her brother to 
moderate his orders. She begs leave to resign her 
office. The indomitable bigot simply reiterates his 
order to execute the edicts. 

He writes in May 1566, that the two things she 
recommended him to yield — to moderate the edicts 
and to suffer the States-General to be summoned, the 
two points mainly insisted on by Orange — were the 
last things he could grant. He was now making the 
final arrangements for the Spanish expedition into 
the ^N^etherlands ; but to gain some more time he 
writes to the Duchess, in Julv 1566, that he will 
approve of some mitigation of the persecution, since 
''he ahhors nothing so much as rigor/' Twelve days 
later he writes to his ambassador at Rome to assure 
the Pope that he will not suffer the least relaxation 
of the punishment. 

As to the pardons publicly announced in my name, whisper 
in the ear of his Holiness that I do not pretend topardonin mat- 
ters religious. Assure his Holiness that rather than suffer the 
least thing in prejudice of religion, I will lose my States and 
a hundred lives, for I will not live to be a king of heretics. 
And if I must use force, I will carry out my intentions my- 



58 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

self, and neither my own peril nor the ruin of these provinces, 
or even of all my dominions, shall stop me from fulfilling my 
duty as a Christian prince to maintain the Catholic faith and 
the Holy See now filled by a Pope whom I love and revere. 

Erom the time when Philip's fierce letter from 
Segovia had been received (the end of 1565) the 
Prince abandoned the hope of ever bending the 
King's purpose by argument. By his secret corres- 
pondents, he knew all that passed in the royal Coun- 
cil, and he saw that resistance alone could be relied 
on. He is said in the Council of State to have dis- 
suaded any further attempt to influence the King. 
He called for the immediate publication of the King's 
missives, saying, ^^ We shall soon see the curtain rise 
on a memorable tragedy (egregiae tragoediae).^^ It is 
ridiculous to imagine that he uttered such words (as 
an enemy relates) ^' with glee " [quasi laetus gloria- 
bundusque^, if he uttered them at all. It would be in 
flagrant contradiction to every word of the weighty 
letter that he wrote to the Regent with his own hand 
to resign his offices. 

Madam (he writes, 24th January, 1566), as to the decrees of 
the Council of Trent,* I do not see that they will cause much 

* The Council of Trent was the 18th oecumenical council of 
the Roman Catholic Church, and one of the most important 
ever held in the history of that body. It convened in the city 
of Trent, — which is situated in the southern Tyrol, just north 
of the Italian boundary, — December 13, 1545, held twenty -five 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 59 

difficulty, and all matters of ecclesiastical order I will leave 
to those whose charge it is ; they are not in my vocation. As 
to the Inquisition, the subjects of these Provinces have been 
repeatedly assured that it shall not be introduced here, and 
this confidence of theirs has greatly added to the peace and 
prosperity of the country. As to the execution of the edicts 
against heresy, it seems to me very hard to insist on them in 
all their details, and I cannot see what His Majesty can gain 
from them but to throw the country into disorder and lose 
the love of his people. If His Majesty and your Highness in- 
sist on carrying out these edicts, which I see may lead to the 
utter ruin of the country, I ask leave to resign my offices and 
avoid the strain of failure on me and mine. 

He protests his loyalty and patriotism and declares 
himself ^^ a good Christian/' — he no longer says " a 
good Catholic." 

The decision of the Spanish King to maintain the 

distinct public sessions, and closed December 4, 1563. The 
council was caused by the exigencies of Protestantism , being 
loudly called for by both parties in the debate. It was, how- 
ever, substantially an ex parte council, being confined to 
Catholics alone. There were two distinct objects in the as- 
semblage : (1) To condemn the principles and doctrines of 
Protestantism, and (2) To reform the discipline in the Cath- 
olic Church — the discipline having confessedly fallen into 
a most deplorable state. Its decrees closed with the words, 
" Anathema to all heretics, anathema, anathema." The de- 
crees and canons were confirmed by a bull issued by Pope Pius 
IV,, January 26, 1564. The canons and decrees are among the 
ablest ever issued by tlie Catliolic Church, and the council 
ranks in importance with those of Nicsea (325), Toledo (589, 
wlien the word filioque was added to the creed, ultimately 
causing the split between the Greek and Roman churches), 
and the Vatican (1870). 



60 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Inquisition in all its severity had aroused far wilder 
indignation among the more ardent Protestants and 
the younger nobles. The chief of these was Louis of 
Nassau, the brave, reckless, noble-hearted brother of 
the Prince, who was associated with Count Brede- 
rode, a wild debauche, Nicolas de Hames, a violent 
man, herald of the Golden Pleece, and several of the 
active preachers. Louis, like the rest of his family, 
was anti-Catholic ; the Flemish Hotspurs were all 
anti-Spanish. They held continual meetings, in 
which the Prince had no part, and devised schemes of 
which he could not wholly approve. There was a 
meeting at Spa and another at Brussels, where Louis 
and his Leaguers drew up and signed the ^* Com- 
promise of the Nobles.'' This was a vehement protest 
against the Inquisition and a pledge of mutual de- 
fence. Its language was violent ; it denounced " the 
gang of foreigners," " their inhuman barbarity," 
their ^^ false hypocrisy." It was signed by Louis, 
Brederode, and ultimately by some two thousand of 
the minor nobles and burghers. The Prince, who did 
not sign this document, endeavored to form a league 
on less violent lines, beginning with the greater nobles 
of the land, and looking to assistance from the 
German chiefs. After a prolonged gathering in his 
own castle of Breda, they adjourned to Hoogstraeten, 
where the Prince endeavored to unite the Knights of 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 61 

the Fleece."^ Egmont, always vacillating, was unwill- 
ing to act, and the combination failed. Orange then 
seems to have given a qualified support to the Leagiie 

* The Golden Fleece is tlie oldest, most exclusive, and most 
illustrious order of knighthood in Euroj)e. It was founded at 
the city of Bruges in 1429 by Pliilip III., duke of Burgundy, 
on the occasion of his marriage with Isabella of Portugal. 
" This order was instituted for the protection of the Church, 
and the fleece was probably assumed for its emblem as much 
from being the material of the staple manufacture of the Low 
Countries as from its connection with heroic times [Greek 
mythology] . The number of tlie knights was thirty-one, and 
they themselves filled up vacancies by vote. This continued 
till 1559, when Philip II. of Spain held the last (the 23d) 
chapter of the order in the Cathedral of Ghent ; and subse- 
quently Philip obtained from Gregory XIII. permission to 
nominate the knights himself. After the death of the last 
Hapsburg king of Spain in 1700, the Emperor Charles VI. 
[emperpr of the Holy Roman Empire] laid claim to the sole 
headships of the order in virtue of his possession of the Nether- 
lands, and, taking with him tlie archives of the order, cele- 
brated its inauguration with great magnificence at Vienna in 
1713. Philip V. of Spain contested the claim of Charles ; 
and the dispute, several times renewed, was at last tacitly 
adjusted by the introduction of the order in both countries. 
The insignia are a golden fleece (a sheepskin with the head 
and feet attached) hanging from a gold and blue enameled 
flint-stone emitting flames, and borne in its turn by a ray of 
fire. On the enameled obverse is inscribed Pretium Idboruvi 
non vile. [The reward of [our] labors is no mean one] . The 
decoration was originally suspended from a chain of alternate 
flints and rays, for which Charles V. allowed a red ribbon to 
be substituted, and the chain is now worn only by the Grand- 
master. The Spanish decoration differs slightly from the 
Austrian. The costume consists of a long robe of deep red 
velvet, lined with white taffeta, and a long mantle of purple 
velvet lined with white satin, and richly trimmed with ena- 



62 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

of Louis; and be advised the Regent to admit the 
" Request " of the Leaguers if it were presented to 
her without armed force and in respectful terms. 

The position of the Prince at this time was one of 
inextricable dilemma ; and his acts and bis language 
are continually varying. He was not yet frankly 
anti-Catholic; he could see no prospect of throwing 
off the Spanish yoke ; he was not prepared for rebel- 
lion; and he could foresee nothing but ruin in a 
premature appeal to force. He could not approve of 
the new League ; he had no liking for the propagan- 
dist preaching; he strongly condemned all outrage 
and the fanaticism and iconoclasm of the Calvinists. 
In a confidential letter to his brother he describes his 
situation. Llis efforts to prevent the ruin of the 
country and the shedding of so much innocent blood 
are treated in the Council as rebellious ; on one side 
is a certain catastrophe, if he does not speak out : on 
the other side, if he speaks, he is charged with treason. 
He is now between the devil and the deep sea. He 
seeks to restrain the violence of his brother and the 
Leaguers ; he seeks to checkmate the Inquisition ; he 

broidery containing fire-stones and steels emitting flames and 
sparks. On the hem, which is of white satin is embroidered 
in gold Je Vay empris [I have undertaken it.] The quest of 
the Golden Fleece] . There is also a cap of purple velvet em- 
broidered in gold, with a liood, and the shoes and stockings 
are re<l." 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 63 

will not be a persecutor. He will not be an icono- 
clast ; he will not instigate rebellion ; and he will not 
abet oppression. Thns the Spanish rulers regarded 
him as their enemy ; the Hot-Gospellers regarded him 
as a recreant to the truth ; the young Leaguers spoke 
of him as a lukewarm friend. His familiar letters at 
this date breathe despondency, perplexity, foreboding, 
and withal an indomitable activity in searching for 
allies from side to side. 

The " Request/' presented to the Regent in April 
(1566), was in form a very different document from 
the ^^ Compromise of the l!^obles." It was a loyal 
and most respectful petition to the royal government 
to countermand the Inquisition and to suspend the 
edicts on religion. This petition was drawn by Louis 
of ^NTassau with the sanction of the Prince, as he 
formally declares ; and the confederation that ob- 
tained the signatures to it was, through Louis, prac- 
tically his own organisation. He supported it 
warmly in Council, protesting that the public burn- 
ings of heretics roused the people to fury^ and did 
harm, and not service, to religion. And when it was 
proposed in Council to cut the petitioners in pieces, 
he indignantly denounced such a savage act as de- 
grading to a .Christian king. The Regent, who wished 
to fly to a fortress, was induced to remain and receive 
the petition. Three hundred gentlemen, in a mock 



64 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

costume of gray frieze, marched in procession to the 
palace, where Brederode read the petition to the 
Duchess. Surrounded by the Prince, Egmont, and 
other councillors, she received it with manifest alarm, 
and copious tears — tears shed not from personal fear, 
but from dread of the consequences to the King and 
the Church. She spoke with dignity, and gave them 
a written reply that she must consult the King, and 
in the meantime she would give orders to moderate 
the edicts. The confederates dispersed through Brus- 
sels, not without acts and words at variance with their 
humble j)etition, and well aware that they had im- 
pressed — if not overawed — the Regency. 

In the Council held by the perplexed Duchess the 
Prince had exerted all his eloquence to show that the 
only way to avoid a dreadful civil war was to act on 
the prayer of the petition, suppress the edicts, and 
dissolve the Inquisition. He pointed out that the 
petitioners were men of honor and influence, and had 
manifest support in the nation. Egmont shrugged 
his shoulders, and said that he should go off to ^^ take 
his cure " at the baths ; Berlaymont broke out with 
the memorable phrase, " Madam, is your Highness to 
be terrorised by these beggars ? By the living God, 
they should be driven out with sticks!.'' Aremberg 
and Meghem agreed with this advice. But in face of 
the splendid array of this cavalcade of nobles and 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 65 

gentlemen in the streets of Brussels, where thej were 
welcomed by the citizens as defending the public lib- 
erties against Spaniards and Cardinalists, more 
prudent counsels prevailed. Orange remained for 
the moment master of the situation. The Regent, as 
usual, temporised, gave vague assurances, promised 
to refer to the King, and to use her influence in favor 
of the request. 

This temporary success intoxicated the young peti- 
tioners. Thev were beardless vouths of rank, some 
chivalrous, some debauched, partly Catholics filled 
with patriotic aspirations, or in quest of adventure; 
partly inclined to Calvinism, but far from being 
agreed either in matters of religion or of policy. 
They adjourned to celebrate their victory in a wild 
supper given by Brederode in the house of Count 
Culemburg, a vehement reformer. When all were 
heated with wine, Brederode rose, and, re^Dcating the 
phrase of Berlaymont in Council, he drank a health 
to " The Beggars.'' He put on a wallet and a wooden 
bowl, such as vagrants wore. The idea seized the 
company ; all shouted — ^^ Long live the Beggars I '' 
And a mock ceremony of initiation was invented, eacli 
brother Beggar swearing to stand true " by salt, by 
bread, and the wallet, too ! " In the midst of the 
revelry, Orange, Egmont, and Horn appeared. They 
came to moderate the young Leagaiers, and to bring 



QQ WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

off Hoogstraeten to the Council. Thej were forced 
to listen to the new toast — the origin of a party name 
which for two generations rang through the world; 
and the revellers broke up without further indis- 
cretions. 

The success of the Request and the news of the 
concessions promised by the Regent, which the con- 
federated '' Beggars " spread about and exaggerated, 
gave a great stimulus to the cause of reformation. 
Montigny and de Berghes were despatched to Spain 
(from which prison-house they were never to return) 
on a mission to explain affairs and to influence the 
King to moderation. Egmont refused to go again ; 
and Orange told the Regent he well knew that Philip 
designed his death and confiscation of his estates. 
The King and his sister now plied the Prince with 
soft words and gracious messages, and he was more 
and more in the ascendant in the council of the Re- 
gent. As late as the 1st of August 15G6, Philip wrote 
to the Prince with his own hand a letter of fulsome 
protestations of his affection and confidence, that the 
Prince was indispensable to his service, and that he 
would listen to no expressions against him. A few 
days after this, the King executed a formal declara- 
tion before a notary, in presence of the Duke of Alva, 
that as his concessions had been made under force, 
and not freely, he reserved to himself full right to 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 67 

piinisli the guilty, and especially those who were the 
authors and supporters of the seditions. To the ap- 
peals made to him from the Xetherlands^ Philip made 
no answer, except by secret injunctions to maintain 
the persecution, which, in spite of promises and some 
show of moderation, was still carried on in places and 
at seasons. 

The great city of Antwerp was now Become the 
chief seat of the Reform movement, which, owing to 
its connection with Geneva and with the French 
Huguenots, took a definitely Calvinist form. Brede- 
rode, Louis of I^assau, Culemburg, and other nobles, 
in active alliance with several Protestant divines, 
stimulated the preaching of the Xew Gospel, which 
Avas now openly carried on by vast popular gather- 
ings. ^* There are more heretics in Antwerp than in 
Geneva," wrote Cardinal Granvelle in his indigna- 
tion ; and in that city sat the synod which organised 
the Protestant consistories. To the diss-ust of all 
Catholics, the medals, badges, toy bowls, and wallets 
of the Beggars were publicly on sale. Lutherans, 
Calvinists, and Anabaptists held open meetings in the 
fields; their ministers carried on an active propa- 
ganda ; and the preaching assemblies were guarded by 
armed men. The same gatherings, at times of ten or 
twenty thousand persons, were continued in all the 
principal towns. The Regent and her ofiicials ful- 



68 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

minated orders against them, but the local magistracy 
was quite unable to suppress them, and the Govern- 
ment had no adequate military force. " Everything 
is in frightful confusion," wrote the bewildered 
Duchess to the King ; '' neither law, nor faith, nor 
king have any longer the least hold on the people." 
She appealed to the irresolute tyrant, she appealed to 
the divided Council, she appealed to Orange. The 
Prince told her that he had no power to suppress the 
movement, and again talked of withdrawing. " The 
Prince has changed his religion," wrote the secretary 
Armenteros (July 1566). ^' J^o one has ever said 
this yet so plainly," wrote Philip on the margin. 

This is, no doubt, the period at which Orange 
ceased to pretend any sympathy for the Catholic 
Church, yet he was far from joining any sect. For 
Anabaptists he had an active aversion, and at this 
time he regarded them as anarchists outside the 
Christian pale. He had no sympathy with the Cal- 
vinists, and was earnestly opposed to their revolu- 
tionary tactics. He had more hope from the Luther- 
ans, where all his German alliances lay. But his 
inner mind was still for a compromise between the 
Churches, mutual toleration, and, if a common wor- 
ship was impossible, a treaty of peace between the 
creeds. He told a confidential agent whom the Re- 
gent sent to talk him over '^ that the hearts and wills 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 69 

of men were things not to be forced by any outward 
power whatever. He well knew that assassins were 
commissioned to kill him, that his life was not safe 
for an hour.'^ At last he accepted, reluctantly enough, 
the mission pressed on him by the Kegent to go to 
Antwerp, of which he was hereditary governor, in 
order to moderate the excitement. There he was 
received with wild enthusiasm, a tumultuous proces- 
sion, and cries of ^^ Long life to the Beggars." For 
some weeks he labored to effect a peaceable settle- 
ment. At length he drew up a scheme by which the 
reformed worship should be excluded from the city, 
but should be tolerated in the suburbs, and an armed 
force was to be maintained at hand to keep order. 
Whilst the Prince was at Antwerp he succeeded in 
calming the agitation, and in maintaining some form 
of peace. But he must have been well aware of the 
violent passions which were so soon to break forth 
in devastating fury; and he urgently warned the 
Regent of the storm which would arise if the preach- 
ings were suppressed by force, or if he himself were 
withdrawn. 

The Duchess insisted on the Prince coming to her 
at Brussels, which, under strong protest, he did 
immediately after the annual Festival. The 18th 
August was the day when Antwerp celebrated the 
public procession of the Virgin. So soon as the 



YO WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Prince was gone, the storm burst. The Holy Image 
was received in the streets with derision and insult. 
Insult led to outrage; a mob of ruffians attacked the 
Cathedral, and, gathering force with numbers and 
audacity from impunity, they sacked the magnificent 
church, destroying the images and statues, wrecking 
the monuments, and shattering the painted glass. It 
was the work of but a few, not more, we are told, than 
a hundred ; but these, as Strada gravely relates, were 
assisted by devils from hell. For some days this havoc 
raged throughout all Antwerp and the neighboring 
villages, and from Antwerp it spread through the 
^Netherlands. In scores of towns and through hun- 
dreds of churches the scenes of devastation were 
renewed. For a week at least the outbreak raged 
unabated. But churches, images, and works of art 
only were destroyed. There was no loss of life. The 
Regent in a paroxysm of rage and fear was about to 
fly to the fortress of Mons. But the Prince and the 
rest of the Council prevented her flight, and thus the 
capital was spared the disorders and scandal of icon- 
oclasm. It was soon found to be the work of a miser- 
able rabble, discountenanced by the true Reformers, 
and most fatal to the cause of the " Beggars." 

The storm of the image-breaking, in which many 
hundreds of churches were desecrated, had a mo- 
mentary effect in overawing the distracted Regent. 



THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 71 

Orange firmly refused to take part in a violent repres- 
sion, whilst lie as firmly insisted on her standing to 
her post. Wild as she was with rage and fear, she 
still in public called him '* her good cousin/' and 
relied on his help, whilst she told the King that he 
was a traitor. Within a few days of the image- 
breaking outrages Margaret Avas convinced that she 
must bend to the storm. On 25th August she signed 
articles of arrangement which declared the Inquisi- 
tion in abeyance, and gave the Reformers liberty of 
worship in such places as it had been hitherto prac- 
tised. Louis of Xassau and the Confederates engaged 
to maintain the royal authority, and not to act in 
concert, against it. The Reformers thought that their 
cause was gained. The towns broke out into rejoicing. 
The Prince returned to Antwerp, where he formally 
restored the Catholic worship in the Cathedral and 
other churches ; some churches he assigned to the 
Lutherans, some to the Calvinists. He gave no con- 
cession to the Anabaptists, whom he regarded as 
anarchists. He executed three of the recent rioters 
and banished three others. 

The language which the Regent held publicly and 
in letters to the Prince was very different from what 
she wrote in secret to the King. She had a formal 
protest drawn up and entered on the register of Gov- 
ernment that her ^ct was null and void as the result 



72 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

of force. Ill the cypher despatches she denounces 
Orange, Egmont, and the other nobles, declares that 
she had only yielded to force, and that every conces- 
sion was subject to His Majesty's approval. This 
approval she very well knew would never come. The 
news of the outrages had thrown Philip into a parox- 
ysm of fury. '^ I swear by the soul of my father,'' 
he cried, '' it shall cost them dear ! " He tore his 
beard, he fretted himself into a violent fever, and 
even after his recovery he shut himself up in seclu- 
sion. He wrote to his confidants furious letters, call- 
ing the culprits enemies of God, king, and country. 
They were outlaws and public enemies, worthy of 
death at any man's hand. Those who had not opposed 
their misdeeds were liable to confiscation, and their 
lives were at the King's mercy. The rage of this 
sinister bigot was more deeply stirred by the destruc- 
tion of ornaments and figures than by the sacrifice 
of ten thousand lives. And now he, his councillors 
and ministers, and the whole Catholic party of Spain, 
roused themselves up to exact a terrible revenge. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

SEDITIOIS^ REBELLIOi^ WAR. 

1566-1567. 

It was now clear to the Prince that thej were in- 
volved in a struggle for existence, and that he was 
regarded as the arch enemy of the King. Long and 
vehement letters pass between the Duchess and 
Orange, in which, under the form of the conventional 
courtesies, she reproaches him with all the concessions 
he had made, protests against all that he proposes to 
do, and insists on his carrying out the repressive or- 
ders of the Government. He, on his side, remonstrates 
against these cruel and impracticable commands, de- 
clares that he is no longer trusted, and asks for the 
appointment of a successor in his office. 

Well aware that, without foreign help, the !N'ether- 
lands must be crushed by Spain, he sought for allies 
with indefatigable energy first from one side, then 
from another. He turned to the French Huguenots, 
to the German Lutherans, to the Protestant Queen of 
England. His restless and enthusiastic brother, 

73 



74 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

iiOuis, made constant journeys to France and to Ger- 
many to negotiate for help, and to enlist men-at-arms. 
His brother John, at Dillenburg, was the medium of 
his appeals to the Lutheran princes. In a circular 
letter to the Dukes of Brunswick, Hesse, and Cleves, 
the Prince warned them in guarded language of the 
critical nature of the struggle. He turned to the 
English Queen, inviting to a banquet Sir Thomas 
Gresham, Elizabeth's Envoy at Antwerp, whom he 
plied with all the resources of his art. He solemnly 
drank the health of the Queen, extolling her wise and 
tolerant government. He told Gresham that he ^' had 
now agreed with the Protestants," and he sent over a 
copy of his ^^ Accord," or settlement. He pressed the 
agent to say Avhether the Queen would give aid to 
their cause as she had done to the Huguenots in 
France " for the sake of religion." x\nd he reiterated 
" that nothing they could do would content the King 
of Spain," that a heavy reckoning must result, if 
Philip became master. 

The breach between the Duchess and Orange was 
now complete. In letter after letter to the King she 
accused the Prince of settled hostility to herself, to 
his sovereign, and to the Catholic religion ; she re- 
ported the efforts that the Prince was making to form 
a party, to collect armed men, and to resist the royal 
commands. On his side, the Prince did not hesitate 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. Y5 

to assert, even to members of tlie Council, that he 
knew the purpose of the King was to crush their re- 
sistance, to cut off the heads of himself and the other 
leaders, and that he was perfectly informed by his 
agents at the Spanish court of what passed in Coun- 
cil, and the purport of the despatches. There is good 
reason to think that both had ample ground for their 
suspicions. It was on both sides a contest of subtlety, 
ingenuity, and desperate manoeuvres to penetrate the 
secret policy of each other. The truth was, in the 
main, perfectly known to both ; and both knew that 
it was known to the other. Orange was now wholly 
resolved to stake his all in resisting the tyranny of 
Spain ; and the King and his secret counsellors were 
well aware that the Prince had staked his all, and 
would leave no stone unturned to win. 

By tradition, by temperament, by conviction, the 
Prince was averse to any democratic methods. He 
felt the urgent need of an organised party amongst 
the chief of the native nobility ; and of these Count 
Egmont was the first. He now made a last effort to 
bring the count into a definite alliance. For this pur- 
pose he sent a trusted envoy to Egmont with a care- 
fully worded memorandum of instructions. It urged 
the vast preparations of Philip in Germany and else- 
where to crush the Netherlands, with which, und<^"' 
pretext of stamping out heresy, the King menaced all, 



76 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

whether Catholic or Protestant ; thus he would " re- 
duce the country, them, and their children, to the 
most miserable slavery ever known." The Prince 
himself was resolved to withdraw, and w^ould never 
stay to witness such a catastrophe. Yet, if only Eg- 
mont and Horn would combine with him, he would 
throw himself and all that was his into the cause, and 
they could ultimately enlist in the struggle the 
Estates-General of the land. In the meantime, they 
three should act without a moment's delay. The 
Duchess, he added, had already commissioned Duke 
Eric of Brunswick with a foreign force to invade 
Holland, although this was the official government of 
the Prince himself. In conclusion, the envoy was to 
press for a personal interview. 

To this Egmont, ever vacillating, consented with an 
ill-grace, and the momentous intervicAv took place at 
Termonde of 3d of October. There were present 
Orange, Egmont, Louis of IsTassau, Horn, Hoogstrae- 
ten, and some others. Louis complained that Mar- 
garet demanded his dismissal from the country ; the 
nobles urged their grievances against the Regent's 
acts, and they insisted on the designs of the King, 
who was to come with a foreign army and crush them. 
A letter from the Spanish Ambassador in Paris to the 
Regent was produced and read ; it was said to have 
been intercepted on its way to Brussels. In it the 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 77 

King is represented as determined to take vengeance 
on the authors of sedition, and in particular to put 
to death Orange, Egmont, and Horn — '' the three 
from whom com'es all the mischief." But in the 
meantime they were to be lulled into security by gra- 
cious language until the time came to strike. 

The letter was ultimately published as an appendix 
to the Apology, but it is treated by all the best author- 
ities as spurious, and in the form we now see it, it 
must be unauthentic. It is quite possible that, where 
both sides were buying secret documents and infor- 
mation, they were not seldom misled by garbled tran- 
scripts or deceived by forgeries. The Regent, when 
Egmont reported this letter to her, indignantly de- 
nounced it as fictitious, although her repudiation of 
an intercepted letter addressed to herself is perhaps 
not conclusive. Xothing really turns on the letter 
being genuine or forged. The information it pro- 
fessed to give was entirely true ; and it contained 
nothing that was not fully known to the Xassaus. 
Philip did mean to kill Orange, Egmont, and Horn 
— and he did kill them. He did mean to send a mag- 
nificent army to crush the movement of the Provinces 
— and he did se7id it, though he did not lead it, nor 
ever meant to lead it. He did advise that the leaders 
should be beguiled for a time, and he did seek him- 
self to beguile them, fo:^ he had lately sent letters in 



78 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

his own hand to Orange and to Egmont full of expres- 
sions of confidence and affection. Whatever the doc- 
uments produced and whatever their origin, Orange 
and his brother exactly understood and expounded to 
Egmont the policj^ of Philip. It was the policy de- 
tailed in voluminous letters of the King to the Regent, 
to Granvelle, to the Ambassador at Rome. It was 
the policy dictated by Alva three years before in the 
letter already cited — "' Raise an army, — chastise all 
the culprits, — detach Egmont — and, in the mean- 
time, dissemble." 

The impetuous Louis was the chief spokesman at 
the conference, whilst Orange supported him and 
watched the effect upon the rest. If the King comes 
with an army to crush us, said Louis, the nobles would 
have the right to resist him in arms ; and if he 
brought in Spanish troops, they must enlist a force of 
Germans. It was impossible to trust the King of 
Spain any more ; and they might even negotiate to 
transfer the sovereignty of the Netherlands altogether 
to the Emperor Maximilian, still maintaining the 
monarchic rule and the House of Austria. Various 
projects were debated — ^whether to resist Philip in 
arms, to trust to making terms with him, or to leave 
the country altogether. 

'No agreement resulted on any point. The two 
jSTassaus failed to rouse either Egmont or Horn. The 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 79 

loyal and chivalrous spirit of Egmont turned from 
the idea of defying his King at the head of an army ; 
his easy simplicity trusted in fraudulent promises and 
futile hopes ; and his vacillation prevented him from 
taking any serious resolve. He broke off the confer- 
ence; reported the result of it to Count ^ansfeldt, 
who reported it to the Duchess. Egmont positively 
and finally refused to act with the Prince. Horn was 
in despair, sullen and sore ; he could see no way that 
promised to succeed, but he would not take arms. 
The attempt of combination fell through, mainly by 
the weakness or loyalty of Egmont, without whom 
nothing could be done. 

Thus ended this critical interview, the details of 
which we know mainlv from the Rovalist and Catho- 
lie reports. It is one of the singular characters of 
this struggle that some cf the most important negotia- 
tions, schemes, and intrigues of both parties are 
known to us by the secret information supplied to the 
other side. And, generally speaking, the King and 
his advisers, and Orange and his confidants, were 
accurately and immediately informed of the private 
counsels of the other. The refusal of Egmont was a 
cruel disappointment and a disastrous blow to the 
Prince. He never spoke harshly of his unstable and 
ill-starred comrade. In his Justification of 1568, 
whilst Egmont was in Al/a's clutches, he seeks to 



80 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

clear Egmont of any treasonable attempt. And four- 
teen years later, in his Apology, he said with stately 
and poignant regret : '' If my brothers and comrades 
of the Order of the Fleece and the Council of State 
had consented to unite their aims with mine, rather 
than sacrifice their lives so cheaply, we would have 
staked life and fortune in the effort to keep the Duke 
of Alva and his Spaniards from setting foot in this 
land." 

The best chance of keeping the Spanish army off 
was to preserve some kind of order, and to secure a 
modus Vivendi between the various religions. The 
Catholics were still in most towns a considerable ma- 
jority ; they were in lawful possession ; they had be- 
hind them the whole weight of the Government and 
the tremendous reserves that the King could com- 
mand. The Protestants were now emboldened by 
success ; they were ready to stake all on their creed ; 
but they were divided into groups, and utterly with- 
out organization or union. The Prince of Orange 
was the one man living who, by his character and im- 
partiality, could maintain any sort of order ; he was 
still officially a Catholic, and he was still forced to 
hold his great offices under the Crowm. Reluctantly, 
despondently, and as a last resource, he continued his 
efforts to stave off the reign of anarchy and war. In 
view of the scenes of tumult and outrage which had 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 81 

ensued in Holland, the Regent insisted tliat the 
Prince, who was there the Stadtholder, should betake 
himself to his Government. She sent a trusty coun- 
sellor to William to induce him to act and to disarm 
his suspicions ; and in the end, after making a frank 
admission of all that he knew and all that he feared 
from Spain, the Prince, on condition of having an 
adequate armed force, betook himself to Holland on 
his thankless mission — to moderate the Hot-Gospel- 
lers and Iconoclasts, to pacify the indignant Catho- 
lics, and to satisfy a remorseless bigot. 

He left Antwerp for Holland on 12th October. At 
Gorkum, near Dort, he found the Reformers on the 
eve of a fresh outbreak of outrage and iconoclasm, 
which he succeeded in quelling by an arrangement 
that the Catholics should be left in peaceable posses- 
sion of their churches, and that places outside the 
town should be reserved for the Xew Faith. At 
Utrecht, where he found the foreign levies of Brims- 
wick already proceeding, he made the same arrange- 
ment between the two religions; and in spite of the 
objection of the Duchess, he obtained her assent. 
" If by exhortation, warnings or any other means," 
she wrote, ^' you can put down these preachings of the 
Gospel, you will confer a service, not only to God, to 
the Catholic Faith, and the country, but a service 

peculiarly grateful to the King." The business, 
6 



82 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

however, of William was exactly the reverse, — it was 
to secure the preachings in peace and quietness ; and 
he compelled the Regent to endure them. 

Thence he went to Amsterdam, where the populace 
had sacked the convent of the Cordeliers and other 
churches. The Government at Brussels insisted on 
their restoration to the Catholics, and that the preach- 
ings should be suppressed, or not permitted within the 
walls. The churches were restored. The preachings 
could not be suppressed. ^^ Madam," he wrote, 
^^ there are so vast a number in Amsterdam, most of 
them non-citizens from the seaboard, mariners and 
ignorant men, rude and unable to reason, that it is 
impossible to suppress the preachings they are accus- 
tomed to hold ; and, in this winter time outside the 
walls, there is nothing but w^ater." — ^' We cannot 
change the ancient religion of our State for these 
sectaries," wrote the Duchess ; " let them go to 
preaching in boats outside the city." — " Preaching 
in boats is a preposterous invention — who could put 
that in your Highness's head ? " replies William, for- 
getful perhaps of a famous sermon on the lake from 
a boat* " They must hold their conventicles inside 
the town." And the Regent is forced to submit. 
Having established something like order and tolera- 
tion in Holland, the Prince returned to Antwerp. 
* See Mark iv. 1, ff. 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 83 

From Utrecht William addressed to tlie States a 
memoir or manifesto on the religious questions at 
issue, which is worthy of minute study, as presenting 
a summary of his views thereon, or rather, as embody- 
ing the policy which at this ej)och seemed to him 
statesmanlike. It will be borne in mind that he was 
himself neither Lutheran nor Calvinist, was actually 
serving Philip and Margaret as their official gover- 
nor, and that his aim was to find a peaceful solution 
of a revolutionary imbroglio. Like his other mani- 
festoes, and indeed like the State papers of that age, 
it is exceedingly diffuse, allusive, and often obscure 
or indefinite. Some three hundred words will follow 
in one involved sentence without a pause. The lan- 
guage is somewhat rhetorical and redundant, the 
ideas are guarded with provisoes, and there is a man- 
ifest desire to conciliate opposite views, to avoid irri- 
tating expressions and dogmatic propositions. In 
essentials it is like a modern State paper in the forms 
of an age before prose writing had been cast into an 
art, and with much of the conventional compliments 
and verbiage of the old official and ecclesiastical 
style. The substance of it is as follows : — 



I have often in mind tlie deplorable condition of this 
country, which must end in its utter ruin, owing to the great 
diversity of opinions, both as to religion and as to its govern- 
ment ; and I grieve to see how few people really take it to 
heart with a view to find a remedy : some from indifference, 



84 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

some from selfisliness, some from cowardice. Now, without 
presuming too much on ni}^ own age and experience, I hold it 
the duty of every citizen, young or old, to give to his country 
\\ hat help is in his power in such a crisis, and not to withhold 
anything that in his conscience he believes to be vital to the 
welfare of the land and the good name of its Master. 

There is no reason to be amazed, much less to fly to arms, 
because a large party of tlie inhabitants of this country em- 
brace and profess opinions contrary to those of their rulers ; 
for history shows us that this has arisen in all kingdoms, and 
especially in such as combine many monarchies, different 
countries and states under one sovereign, as are those of His 
Majesty. These Netherland States are so surrounded by others 
which have changed their religion, that, even if they had 
never till now heard of any but the Catholic, thej' could not 
be long without change, seeing how much frequented by 
foreigners is this land. To forbid aliens access is impossible, 
for they make the prosperity of the country ; and, together 
with wars, camps, garrisons, and public preachings, to say 
nothing of the actual doings of churchmen, there is nothing 
surprising in the spread of the new views. But we ought to 
reflect on the warnings given us, when we look round on other 
countries that have changed tlieir religion and endured re- 
ligious wars, how they have suffered extreme desolation, and 
have passed through all kinds of calamities and horrors, to the 
ruin of the land and the loss of authority to the Prince. 

The first thing to be done is to induce the King to confirm 
the concessions made by the Regent to the Confederates. 
They have served to allay the agitation, and have caused the 
people to lay down their arms ; and the result would have 
been greater, but for the fear that the King intends to revoke 
these concessions, and is levying horse and foot, here and 
abroad, to enable him to undo all that has been gained. It is 
useless to patch up the peace of one district whilst disturb- 
ance breaks out in another. We must have a general and 
final settlement. Our country cannot form a world of its 
own, isolated from its neighbors. There is no land in Chris- 
tendom more completely dependent on a friendlj"^ understand- 



SEDITION— REBELLION WAR. 85 

ing with the nations around us. Our interests point to con- 
nection with the Empire, rather than with any other stute, 
and we should assimilate our institutions to those of the Em- 
])ire, saving the rights and privileges of His Majesty in Spain. 
If the Emperor Maximilian were to mediate between tlie two 
religions, and were to obtain a general amnesty for the past, 
a complete pacification might result. And this vdght become 
the basis of a perpetual League for guaranteeing the neutrali- 
zation of this country, the common resort of foreigners for 
purposes of trade and commerce, the first condition of which 
is a state of secure peace. 

There are seven possible courses that might be taken : — 
" 1. Suppress by force of arms all preaching and practice of 

the New Faith. 
" 2. Banish all who reject the Catholic Faith and confiscate 

their goods. 
" 3. Permit all who so elect to follow their own conscience 
at home within their own boundaries, and to retain the 
income of their property. 
" 4. Permit the free practice of any religion, and assign to 

each certain quarters in each province. 
*' 5. Allow a ' local option ' to each town , or to each Seigneur 
having local jurisdiction, to permit or forbid the prac- 
tice of the New Faith within their areas. 
*' 6. To permit the Lutheran Confession alone, the Catholic 

Church and rites remaining untouched. 
"7. To permit, along with the Catholic, both Lutheran and 
Calvinist communions, as is actually done, so long as 
they shall continue to insist on their differences." 

These seven courses the Prince proceeds to discuss. 
The first three, all of which are persecution in one 
form or other, he rejects with indignation and horror, 
as involving the ruin of the country, as well as mani- 
fest injustice. The sixth he passes by as unfair and 
illusory, and that in spite of his ov^n Lutheran birth, 



86 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

wife, brothers, and alliances. The seventh he seems 
to feel would never be listened to for a moment by 
Philip or the ruling powers. The fourth or the fifth 
he seems to regard as the most practicable schemes. 
Indeed the fourth course — the free exercise of any 
Christian faith to be assigned to defined quarters and 
spots — was the plan on which he had been acting with 
success during the whole struggle since the outrages 
of August. His conception of the neutralisation of 
the ^N^etherlands in the general interest of Europe, 
and also his expectation of the dying down of theo- 
logical dogmatism in the course of centuries are aston- 
ishing examples of his political genius, and stamp 
him as the one statesman very far in advance of his 
age. Intellectually, he could dream of a fusion of 
the best elements of the Catholic and Protestant 
faiths. As a statesman, he thought they might agree 
to differ by local separation. 

He continues (as if foreseeing the long struggle 
and the Thirty- Years War) : — 

The resort to force must be both short-lived and ruinous to 
tlie countr}^ for it involves the use of foreign mercenaries with 
all the cruelty, rapacity, and wanton oppression they always 
bring in their train. We have seen the horrors and outrages 
they inflict on man and woman, and the ruin of the welfare of 
our land. As to the banishment of a vast body of Reformers, 
even if it could be carried out witliout resorting to force, it 
would strip the country of its best workers and chief traders 
— our country which is " the market of Christendom." It 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 87 

might seem more reasonable to allow the private freedom of 
conscience without public worship, but this would end in 
atheism and irreligion altogether, like the brute beasts. As 
to permitting unlimited toleration, we know that the King, 
his Council, and all Spain would rather see half this land de- 
stroyed before they will consent to it. The conclusion is that 
there must be a compromise whereby the safety of person and 
property, churches and institutions, be guaranteed to the 
Catholics ; and that there should be secured to the New Faith 
an exercise of their worship under conditions and limits of 
place. Thus only can we avoid great effusion of blood and 
ruin to tlie country, together with the possible destruction of 
the Catholic Faith. There is no real obstacle to tolerating a 
religion other than our own, if we only trust that error must 
ultimately disappear. The Arian heresy * was not suppressed 

* Arianism took its name from its founder, the celebrated 
Arius who was born in Libya, Africa, between 250 and 260 
A. D. The heresy flourished widely, especially in Alexandria 
during the following century. It was at the onset a protest 
at once against Tritheism and Sabellianism, and the doctrines 
undoubtedly tended toward a denial of the divinity of Christ. 
When pressed in argument Arius, in order to maintain his 
ground of the absolute distinction between the Father and the 
Son, went so far as to contend that the Son was not co-equal 
or co-eternal with the Father and that he ought not to be 
ranked with the Father ; he was only the first and highest of 
all finite beings, created out of nothing by an act of God's free 
will ; he contended that the Son of God was created out of 
nothing, that he had not always existed, that he was not im- 
mutable or impeccable, that he remained holy only through 
his free will, and that he could have sinned as easily as not. 
The doctrine spread very widely, and a few jeavs later the 
Empress Constantia herself became an adherent of them. In 
the meanvvhile the emperor Constantine, compelled to take 
cognizance of the state of unrest, summoned the council of 
Nicaea. The eloquence of Arius made a deep impression on 
the assembled bishops and other clergy, but he met more than 



88 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

by bloodshed ; but after centuries of active life, it was ulti- 
mately overcome by the diligence, learning, and devotion to 
duty of the Catholic teachers themselves. A very large part 
of our people have embraced the new views, and rather than 
forsake them they will give up their lives and homes. To 
crush them into orthodoxy by force is impossible or intoler- 
able. If their opinions are false, if the Catholic Faith he 
hasedon eternal truth, their doctrines will melt away in good 
time, like the snow before the sun. 

Of possible help from without, Orange at this time 
had most hope from the German chiefs. N^othing 

his match in Athanasius, the fiery orator and keen logician. 
The council formulate the Nicene Creed, which was a decided 
condemnation of the doctrines of Arianism. All the bishops 
of the council signed its decrees excepting two, and these 
were banished with Arius. 

"When Arius made his counter-statements, when he ex- 
pressed the high honor in which he held the Son, these were 
deemed satisfactory by most people. In other words, his 
affirmations generally commanded hearty assent while his 
negations usually aroused bitter antagonism. Thus he was 
frequently excommunicated and reinstated. In 336, being 
under sentence of excommunication, he appealed to th© em- 
peror at Constantinople who ordered the bishop of that city 
to administer the communion to liim the following Sunday. 
The orthodox party betook themselves to ecclesiastical pro- 
cessions and to fervent prayers, beseeching God to destroy 
the heretic. Singularly enough, before the ceremony of the 
communion, Arius died suddenly and mysteriously. His 
friends always insisted that he was poisoned, but the opposite 
party saw in his sudden removal a great deliverance and an 
undoubted answer to their prayers. The teachings of Arius 
never commanded a majority of the Christian Church, nor 
have they entirely disappeared. But, as William the Silent 
justly maintained, they gave way to reasoning, not to perse- 
cution and violence. 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 89 

effective came from the Huguenots in France ; even 
less came from Elizabeth. This is the epoch at which 
long and earnest despatches pass between Orange and 
the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the 
Counts of ITassau, Wittgenstein, and other leading 
nobles of the Empire. William, Louis, and, to a 
great extent, John of N^assau, press for a league of the 
German princes to save the existence of the Reform 
in the Netherlands. One after another the princes 
urge acceptance of the Lutheran Confession of Augs- 
burg. They do not put it quite sharply ; but their 
terms amount to this — that the Nctherlanders must 
abandon Calvinism and accept Lutheranism as a con- 
dition precedent to receiving aid. William is now 
inclined to adopt the Lutheranism of his House and 
of his only powerful friends ; but he saw that Luther- 
anism had no real hold on the masses of his own land, 
and that it was useless to attempt any further press- 
ure to modify their Calvinistic fervor. He pleads 
their cause earnestly, piteously, and skilfully. He 
says that he is thinking of declaring himself to be a 
Lutheran, but that Philip regards Lutherans as just 
as bad as Calvinists. " Surely the German Protes- 
tants will not see these innocent, helpless Christians 
crushed without an effort." But he pleads in vain. 

'' I am no Calvinist," wrote the Prince to the Land- 
grave of Hesse, "' but it seems to me neither right nor 



90 . WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

worthy of a Christian to seek, for the sake of differ- 
ences between the doctrine of Calvin and the Confes- 
sion of Augsburg,* to have this land swarming with 
troops and inundated with blood." Neither William 
nor Louis could at this time understand how such 
speculative differences could keep men apart in such 
imminent peril. They tried conferences; they brought 
Lutheran divines from Germany to convince the 
Dutch Calvinists of their errors ; they appealed to 
the Lutherans not to stand out for their Confession in 
a matter of life and death. But no impression could 
be made either on Lutheran or on Calvinist. " Would 
not the German princes at least intercede with 
Philip ? '' ^' Would they hinder the passage of the 
royal mercenaries from Germany ? " writes William 
to the Elector of Saxony. Saxony, Hesse, Wurtem- 
burg, and the rest offer excellent advice, " to beware 
of Philip, not to drive him to extremity, to avoid out- 
rages ; " they are full of Christian brotherhood to- 
wards the Netherlanders, but how can these men per- 
sist in their Calvinistic errors ? The letters of these 
high, mighty, and serene potentates read like theo- 
logical essays, polemical phrases abound, the Confes- 
sion of Augsburg is a sine qua non. In December 

* The Augsburg Confession is the creed of the Lutheran 
church. It was prepared by Luther's associate, Melanchthon 
and read before the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 91 

the Prince sent a mission, with his brother John and 
other chiefs, to make a last appeal to the great mag- 
nates. Thej were to plead earnestly for the Re- 
formers, to defend their civic loyalty provided their 
consciences were not forced, to detail the enormities 
committed by the Spaniards, and the dangers of a new 
invasion. Some ineffectual conferences were held. 
]^one of the Lutheran princes would act ; even Count 
Kuenar, William's brother-in-law, was sorry he could 
not join ; he is not important, he begs to have him- 
self excused. 

The Prince left Holland in January 1567, having 
brought things to a certain degree of order by a settle- 
ment, most ungrateful to the Regent, but so far ap- 
proved by the States of Holland that they voted him a 
gift of 50,000 florins — a present which he proudly 
declined. At Breda he called together a conference 
of nobles, who made a new effort to induce Egmont to 
join in resisting the Spanish army. To this Egmont 
gave an indignant refusal, answering that he would 
treat as his enemy any who failed in their allegiance 
to their lord. In February the Prince returned to 
Antwerp, which was in a state of acute agitation. 
There were 40,000 Protestants in the city, reported 
the English agent, all ready to die for their belief. 
The Regent was now insisting on the withdrawal of 
all concessions, the dismissal of the preachers, and the 



92 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

restoration everywhere of the Catholic worship, to- 
gether w^ith exaction from all officials of the new oath 
^^ to serve the King in all or any commands." The 
rumor of this retrograde step drew an angry crowd 
of 2000 persons round the abode of the Prince, who 
could only pacify them with difficulty. Efforts were 
made by Egmont and the loyalist nobles to induce 
Orange to accept this new oath and to impose it on all 
under him. But he stoutly refused to have anything 
to do with it, or even to discuss it with the Royalist 
partisans. 

And now broke forth the long-gathering, expected, 
inevitable crash of arms, which the Prince had been 
striving to avert, yet for which he was practically 
more or less responsible. For more than a year he 
had been straining^ everv nerve to form an armed 
confederation to oppose the King; Louis had been 
flying about to engage troops, both horse and foot; 
Brederode was fortifying his castle with the Prince's 
cannon, and he and others were raising armed bands 
under the Prince's eyes; Lutherans, Calvinists, and 
patriots were constantly receiving from his confidants 
promises of sympathy and aid. Orange, as a states- 
man and general who had taken part in great wars 
and combinations, naturally intended to resist only 
when he had a powerful organised force and the cer- 
tainty of further help from abroad. The impatience 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 93 

of the sectaries plunged them into a series of wild 
outbreaks which uniformly ended in bloody defeat. 
Many of these desperate attempts were certainly car- 
ried out by intimate allies and agents of the Prince ; 
several were prepared under his eyes ; he made no 
serious effort to arrest them. And yet there is no 
evidence that he either instigated or approved them. 
The truth is, that his twofold position as Minister of 
the Crown, and yet virtual head of an armed resist- 
ance, was a position of hopeless ambiguity and inex- 
tricable duplicity. 

One of the boldest and most vehement of the Cal- 
vinist champions Avas Jean de Marnix, Lord of 
Tholouse and brother of Ste. Aldegonde. He got 
together a troop of raw, half-armed enthusiasts and 
made an attack on the Isle of Walcheren. This fail- 
ing, he led them to Ostrawell, just north of Antwerp, 
and there the insurgents posted themselves to the 
number of 3000. A Koyalist force, under Philippe 
de Beauvoir, took them by surprise, cut them to 
pieces, and killed de Marnix under the walls of Ant- 
werp.* Within the city a wild mob of citizens, 

* " The Catholics came on with the coolness of veterans, 
taking as deliberate aim as if it had been they, not their 
enemies, who were behind breastworks. The troops of Tho- 
louse fired wildly, precipitately, quite over the heads of their 
assailants. Many of the defenders were slain as fast as they 
showed themselves above their bulwarks. The ditch was 
crossed, the breastwork carried at a single determined charge. 



94 * WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

snatching up any weapon or even tool, clamored lo 
be led forth to succor their friends. This useless 
sacrifice was prevented by the Prince, who, hastily 
calling together an armed force, went forward to meet 
the excited crowd. He was greeted with execrations 
and cries of '' Vile traitor," — '' Soldier of the Pope," 

The rebels made little resistance, but fled as soon as the enemy- 
entered their fort. It was a hunt, not a battle. Hundreds 
were stretched dead in the camp ; Inmdreds were driven into 
the Scheldt ; six or eight hundred took refuge in a farm- 
liouse ; but De Beauvoir's men set fire to the building, and 
every rebel who entered it was burned alive or shot. No 
quarter was given. Hardly a man of the tliree thousand who 
held the fort escaped. The body of Tholouse was cut into a 
hundred pieces, the Seigneur de Beauvoir had reason, in the 
brief letter which gave an account of this exploit, to assure 
her Higlmess that there were "some very valiant fellows in 
his little troop." Certainly they had accomplished the enter- 
prise entrusted to them with promptness, neatness, and entire 
success. Of tlie great rebellions gathering, which every day 
had seemed to grow more formidable, not a vestige was left. 
"This bloody drama had been enacted in full sight of 
Antwerp. The fight had lasted from daybreak till ten o'clock 
in the forenoon, during the whole of which period the city 
ramparts looking towards Ostrawell, the roofs of the houses, 
the towers of cluirches liad been swarming with eager spec- 
tators. The sound of drum and trumpet, the rattle of mus- 
ketry, the shouts of victory, the despairing cries of the van- 
quished were heard by thousands who deeply sympathized 
with the rebels in thus enduring so sanguinary a cliastisement. 
In Antwerp there were forty thousand people opposed to the 
Church of Rome. Of this number the greater proportion 
were Calvinists, and of these Calvinists there were thousands 
looking down from the battlements upon the disastrous fi^ht,'' 
■- — Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, chap. ix. 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 95 

— '' Minister of Antichrist ! " He had the gates 
closed, and forced the mob back into the centre of the 
town. Here a vast concourse of Calvinists were 
gathered ; thej seized some cannon, opened the 
prisons, and prepared for a new sack of the churches 
and Catholic houses. The Prince himself was threat- 
ened by a man who levelled an arquebus at his breast, 
crying out, " Faithless traitor, it is thou who art the 
cause of this massacre of our brothers ! " 

The next day some 13,000 or 15,000 men on the 
Calvinist side were gathered in the Place de Meir, 
and formed barricades mounted with cannon. The 
Prince acted with extraordinarv enerffv and no less 
consummate moderation. He marshalled all the 
regular forces of the city; he enrolled some three or 
four thousand Lutherans, united them with the armed 
Catholics in defence of order, and called for support 
from the foreign mercantile guilds. He himself sat 
day and night in the council chamber to frame some 
treaty of compromise. At imminent peril he again 
went down to the furious insurgents in the Meir, 
calling on the^n to send deputations to discuss terms of 
peace and settlement. 

On the third day the condition of Antwerp was 
fearful. There were now three armed bodies posted 
within the city, in numbers altogether that were com- 
puted at thirty or forty thousand. " The Calvinists," 



<^G WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

says the contemporary Catholic, Pontus Payen, 
" hated the Lutherans as much as the Catholics, or 
Avorse. They called them semi-Papists, worse than 
Papists ; nor had they a good word for the Anabap- 
tists, who were as much children of the devil as they 
were themselves. And they would have succeeded in 
their detestable ends, if the Prince had not stopped 
them by his wisdom and energy. lie, detesting the 
bloodthirsty temper of the Calvinists, found means to 
stem their bold attempts with a strong hand." He 
formed a solid armed force consisting of Catholics, 
Lutherans, foreign merchants, and the leading 
burghers of all creeds ; the tocsin was rung, and the 
rioters surrounded. Then, at the head of a deputa- 
tion from the Council, attended by a hundred men-at- 
arms, he rode up to the barricades in the Meir. There 
he had the terms of settlement read aloud, and he 
proved to them that they were all they could obtain, 
being free right of worship and exclusion of a foreign 
garrison. Lie warned the insurgents that they were 
outnumbered by two to one, and that further resist- 
ance could only end in a new massacre such as they 
had lately witnessed at Ostrawell. He adjured them 
passionately to accept the terms. They were over- 
awed, if not convinced. Their preachers accepted the 
terms. As the settlement was read out, the Prince 
cried — '^ God save the King." And, as a sign of sub- 



SEDITION— REBELLION— AY AR. 9 7 

mission to his authoritv, the same cry at last broke 
forth from the fierce gathering of men who had kept 
the city in awe for three days and nights. " Thus 
was the tumult quelled/' says old Pontus, ^' without 
any spilling of blood, which every one expected to 
see." 

This was one of the most masterly, as well as one 
of the most hazardous, exploits of the time, crowded 
as that time was with heroic and brilliant deeds. 
And it has won the praise of all historians on both 
sides. The garrulous Pontus, who never would be- 
lieve in the Prince's soldierly courage, declares that 
Orange then saved the city from pillage and mas- 
sacre; and, though men chiefly applauded him for 
protecting the Catholics by bringing the Lutherans 
and foreigners to their aid^ the old Catholic writer 
believes that it was the Calvinists who have most 
cause to thank him for saving them, the weaker party, 
from the condign chastisement they were about to 
receive. Fortunately we have an excellent eye- 
witness in Sir Thomas Gresham, who wrote thus to 
Cecil : " The Prince very nobly hath travailed, both 
night and day, to keep this town from manslaiTghter 
and from despoil, which doubtless had taken place, ?f 
he had not been, — to the loss of 20,000 men ; for that 
I never saw men so desperate willing to fight." The 
Prince himself, in a letter to a German friend re- 



98 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

counting these terrible days, says that order was pre- 
served only by great effort and labor, and common 
risk of life and limb; that their escape from death 
was so marvellous that they feel as if the grace of God 
had vouchsafed them a second life. It will earn us 
little thanks at Court, he knows; but they must look 
for reward to God, their consciences, and honest 
people. '' I know not how we can find a way out of 
this strait," he adds, " and we can only commend 
ourselves to God and the prayers of our friends.'' 

Everywhere the ill-starred outbreaks of the Prot- 
estants in arms were savagely crushed. Egmont re- 
duced Flanders. Xoircarmes, having subdued Tour- 
nay, marched against Valenciennes. He cut to pieces 
a miserable rabble of half-armed insurgents at Lan- 
noy and Watrelots, slaying and burning some thou- 
sands, and laid siege to Valenciennes, which, with the 
aid of Egmont, by the end of March, he had captured. 
A bloody vengeance was taken, and hundreds of citi- 
zens and ministers were strangled or beheaded. The 
victorious general pursued his successes throughout 
the country, and these series of defeats struck panic 
into the whole Protestant cause. ^' The capture of 
Valenciennes," wrote l^oircarmes, " has wrought a 
miracle ; the other cities submit with a rope round 
their necks." The victory at Lannoy, we are told, 
^' had made these hypocrites of Catholics toss their 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 99 

heads, like so many dromedaries, in their stiff-necked 
insolence." The first blood had indeed resulted in a 
cruel disaster everywhere to the Reformers. It is 
difficult to clear William, if not of complicity with 
these miserable struggles, at least of responsibility for 
their failure. His agents had given them encourage- 
ment and hope. He was himself powerless to control 
them, and was still an official of the Government 
which crushed them. He was no doubt willing to see 
them as formidable and as stubborn as they could be 
made. He underrated the discipline and energy of 
the Royalist forces, but he never intended half-armed 
peasants led by ignorant preachers to take the field. 

'No thanks, indeed, were ever wasted on the Prince 
by the Regent and the Government of the King. 
Margaret declared that the terms of settlement at 
Antwerp were " strange and preposterous," that it 
was a surrender to sedition; and shortly afterwards 
she annulled the agreement and forced the magis- 
trates to dismiss the preachers. But the intolerably 
false positron of William was now about to end ; and 
the stubborn, diplomatic contest between this adroit 
pair had almost reached its close. For at least four- 
teen months, ever since William's famous letter of 
24th January 1566, resigning his offices and refusing 
to enforce the edicts of persecution, the official letters 
of the Regent had contained nothing but complaint, 

L.ofC. 



100 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

suspicion, reprimand, and refusal to accept his 
advice or to confirm his acts. On his side, his elabo- 
rate replies were able, determined, unanswerable 
arguments to convict her of impracticable orders and 
unfounded fears. The forms of politeness are re- 
tained. She always addresses him as ^' Her good 
cousin," and he is always '' the very humble servant 
of Her Highness, whose hand he kisses and whom 
may God preserve." She, all the while, is writing 
daily to Philip that the Prince is betraying him ; and 
the Prince at last declines to see the Regent, or even 
to come within her reach. Yet the diplomatic war 
goes on incessantly between Margaret and her great 
Minister. In her precarious position without Spanish 
troops, she rightly felt that Orange was indispensable, 
if the whole country was not to be plunged into a state 
of bloody turmoil. He, on his side, was laboring to 
gain time, and to disarm tyranny by an organised 
resistance. She regarded him as a temporary instru- 
ment of order, though potentially a leader of rebel- 
lion. He regarded her as the official instrument of a 
power which he hoped to baffle, and trusted that he 
could outwit. 

The final breach came over the new oath, which the 
bigotry of Philip had invented as a notable trap. 
From the beginning of the year 1 567, the Regent had 
been urging the Prince to obtain from the troops and 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 101 

officers under his orders a new form of oath that had 
been ordered from Spain. William put off her de- 
mands with excuses that were not quite serious and 
hardly civil. At last she sends him (8th March 
1567) a solemn and peremptory demand to sign by 
way of oath a formal undertaking '' to serve His 
Majesty J and to act towards and against all and every, 
as shall he ordered me on his behalf, without limita- 
tion or restriction." Thus directly challenged, the 
Prince replies by a positive refusal to sign such an 
oath as being both " unprecedented and general/' as 
involving acts that might be '^ against his conscience, 
and to the injury of the King and the country, and 
contrary to his allegiance as feudal lord, and subject 
of this land." And he thereupon begs leave to resign 
all his offices, and to withdraw from service. 

The Regent could not spare such a man, and she 
dared not yet defy him : it w^as just before the out- 
break at Antwerp. She sent an agent to the Prince 
to induce him to retain office ; but he was unmoved. 
He said the new oath might compel him to act against 
the Provinces of which he was hereditary chief, 
against the Emperor, or even to kill his own wife. 
He was pressed to meet Egmontand Mansf eldt, w^hich 
he consented to do. The last interview took place at 
Willebroek, 2d April 1567, in presence of the Re- 
gent's agent, who took notes. The Jesuit historian, 



102 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

who had access to these, relates that nothing was con- 
cluded, as neither Orange nor Egmont could shake 
the other. The Prince took Egmont aside and im- 
plored him not to await the tempest of blood which 
Spain was about to discharge upon the Netherlands. 
Egmont was confident that if the country was quiet, 
the King would be merciful. ^^ This mercy will be 
your ruin ; you will be the bridge across which the 
Spaniards will enter this land,? said Orange. Sure 
that he would never see his old comrade again, he 
grasped Egmont in his arms ; and so, " both weeping, 
they took a last farewell." 

Thereupon the Prince wrote a series of letters to 
the King, the Regent, to de Berghes in Spain, to 
Egmont, and to Horn, in all of which he announced 
his resolve to withdraw from all offices, and to betake 
himself to Germany. He seems still to have cherished 
a forlorn hope that by fair words he might yet avert 
from himself and from his outlawry and confiscation. 
He wrote a stately official farewell to the Regent, 
rehearsing his services and sacrifices, and declaring 
his loyalty and good faith. He withdrew his 
daughter, Marie, who had been in the Court of the 
Duchess for the last three years. To the King he 
wrote a long justification of his acts as governor, and 
formally renounced his offices, on the ground that he 
could not accept the general and unlimited terms of 



SEDITION— REBELLION— WAR. 103 

the novel oath demanded, whilst he purposed to re- 
main a loyal subject. To Egmont and to Horn he 
sent epistles, in the Latin tongue, evidently prepared 
by some learned scribe, and for the use perhaps of 
clerical readers, full of sonorous compliments, stated 
protestations, and official asseverations of loyalty and 
patriotism. To de Berghes, in Madrid, he v^rote, that 
he could no longer stay to see the ruin of the country, 
which he was unable to avert. Having satisfied all 
the conventions, he withdrew to Breda, which he 
reached safely on the 11th April. The last letter of 
the Regent overflows with protestations of confidence 
and affection ; she begs him to remain ever true and 
faithful to his King ; she will ever cherish him as her 
own son ; and hopes soon to have again under her roof 
his dear daughter, whom she loves as her own. She 
prays the Creator to give him happiness and a pros- 
perous journey into Germany. The Prince, it seems, 
had steadily refused to come within the grasp of the 
Regent's bodyguard ; and, indeed, hearing of the ap- 
proach of a Royalist force, he hastily set forth from 
Breda in what his enemies called a flight. The official 
letters, full of affection, trust, friendship, and loyalty, 
which he wrote and received, were simply the custom 
of the age. He received them, but he did not trust 
them. A secret message from the very Cabinet of 
Philip revealed to him ^^ that Alva was first and fore- 



104 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

most to seize the Prince, bring him to execution with- 
in twentj-four hours." The first clause of the secret 
instructions from the King required Alva to arrest 
and bring to condign punishment the chief persons of 
the country who had shown themselves guilty during 
the late troubles. 



CHAPTEK Y. 



ALVA TEEKOK DEFEAT. 



1567-1569. 

I^s" those very days of April 1567, when William 
of Orange was withdrawing from the Netherlands in 
despair, Ferdinand de Toledo, Dnke of Alva, was 
leaving Spain in triumph, to take command of the 
punitive force, and ultimately of the government of 
the Low Countries. He marshalled his troops at 
Genoa ; and thence he led them northwards across the 
Alps, through Lombardy, Burgundy, and Luxemburg 
to Brussels. This splendid army was one of the most 
perfect engines of war ever seen in that age. The 
total force consisted of some 21,000 men with 6000 
horses. The fighting men comprised about 9000 foot, 
Spanish veterans mainly drawn from the garrisons of 
Lombardy and Naples. The cavalry were some 1200 
troopers from Italy. These were joined by a force of 
German mercenaries, both horse and foot. They had 
a due complement of artillery and engineers; and 
together they formed a small but efficient corps of the 

105 



106 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

best soldiers in Europe. A portion of the infantry 
were equipped with muskets, — an arm not previously 
used by troops in the field, — they were attended by 
their squires and bearers ; on the march they were 
mounted; their armor was gilt and chased, and each 
private soldier was arrayed like an officer of rank. 
Two thousand courtezans, we are told, were enrolled 
in this force, '' four hundred of them in garb as fine 
as princesses, and riding their horses." The martial 
array of the Spanish soldiery filled all beholders with 
admiration, wonder, and alarm. 

The organisation of this veteran army was perfect. 
Their commander was acknowledged to be one of the 
greatest masters of Avar of his age. And under him 
served the most able captains of horse and foot that 
Europe had seen. In discipline, in commissariat, in 
all tactical provisions, this model army was equal to 
anything in modern war. The Pope had wished it to 
be diverted ^' to destroy the town of Geneva." But 
without a check, and without a halt, constantly 
watched by jealous forces of Swiss, Germans, and 
French, the Spanish army in three months achieved 
its long and difficult march from the Mediterranean 
to Brabant. 

Their chief was a consummate and experienced 
soldier, now in his sixtieth year. Charles Y. had pro- 
nounced him to be one of the three great commanders 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 107 

of his time. From the age of sixteen lie had lived in 
the field or the camp. The Duke of Alva is v^ell 
known to us by the grand portrait of Titian. Tall, 
spare, upright, with a stern but regular countenance, 
a long dark visage, gleaming black eyes, close black 
hair, a waving beard flowing over his magnificent 
armor, and wearing the collar of the Fleece, he looks 
the ideal of the resolute, profound, self-centred 
grandee, bronzed in war and worn with unremitting 
cares. Proud of his imperial descent, he was arrogant 
even for a Spanish duke, consumed with ambition, 
thirsting for wealth, jealous, implacable, and abnor- 
mally prone to cruelty and deceit. Though neither 
saint or devotee, he was not brutal, not intemperate, 
not shameless; but tenacious enough of his own 
strange point of honor. He was a sincere bigot ; inex- 
orably convinced that no law, human or divine, stood 
between his duty to the Catholic Church and the 
Catholic King — that nothing which he vehemently 
desired could be otherwise than right. He had a 
conscience of his own, and even had, or once had, 
some inner recess of a heart. But fanaticism, pride, 
and self-worship made him what for centuries he has 
remained in the history of Europe — the type of all 
that is bloody, pitiless, and false. 

Alva had received his original commission from 
Philip as early as December 1566, and in the same 



108 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

month this was communicated to the Regent. It had 
caused const-ernation in her Council, and bitter disap- 
pointment to herself. She remonstrated with her 
brother ; told him that " the very name of Alva al- 
ready made the Spanish nation hateful in the Nether- 
lands.'' With obstinate mendacity Philip had reiter- 
ated that he was coming in person ; he tried to pass the 
fraud upon his sister, the Council, even upon the 
Pope. The Regent urged Alva to limit and restrain 
the army, the approach of which was causing such 
terror. She prayed Philip to inform her what were 
the General's powers. All this the King and his new 
Viceroy treated with silent contempt, keeping their 
o^vn counsel, and concealing the truth. " I have 
tamed men of iron," said Alva; "shall I not deal 
with these men of butter ? " Alva, as a Knight of 
the Golden Pleece, had some qualms about dealing 
with his brother knights contrary to the rules of this 
ancient Order of Chivalry. But Philip, by a notarial 
act in Latin (15th April 156Y), authorised the Duke 
'^ to proceed to punish all authors of the late troubles, 
without regard to the Constitution of the Order, even 
in the case of Knights of the Fleece/' 

The Duke entered Belgium in August, and was 
waited upon by the Royalist grandees, including 
Egmont, who came with a fine retinue and a present 
of horses. Alva received the count with diabolical 




Th3 Duke of Alva causes the arrest of Counts Egmont and Horn.— Pa^e 10-i. 

William the Silent. 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 109 

good-humor and sarcasm, passed his arm round his 
neck, and then rode side by side in ostentatious 
friendliness. Count Horn was also welcomed with 
cordiality and affection. The young Count of Buren, 
eldest son of the Prince of Orange, then thirteen, was 
studying at the University of Louvain. The Duke 
received the lad most graciously, promised his good 
offices to him and to his father, and accepted from 
the Prince a present for his own son. It is even said 
that the Prince wrote to the Duke a formal letter of 
compliments. Alva entered Brussels in state on the 
2 2d August, to the w^rath of the Duchess whom he 
was to supplant, and at once became practically 
master of the land. He was hardly firm in his seat 
when the new Beign of Terror began. 

The Council of Troubles — henceforth known as the 
Council of Blood — was instituted ; and it soon became 
a sort of court-martial, with the Duke as perpetual 
president, and a few creatures of his own as assessors. 
Egmont and Horn, lulled into a sense of security, 
were treacherously arrested. With them, a crowd 
of men of mark were seized. But as the wily Cardinal 
Granvelle remarked, ^' to have seized the Prince 
would have been more important than all the rest " ; 
and the Duke wrote to Philip that the Prince was 
" the head of all." Alva did what he could do, in the 
absence of Orange. In January 1568 a solemn proc- 



110 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

lamation of outlawry was made against the Prince, 
" as chief author, supporter, and accomplice of the 
rebels and disturbers of the peace." And shortly 
afterwards, the Count of Buren, his eldest son and 
heir, was treacherously seized in the University, be- 
fooled, and carried off to Spain, where he was des- 
tined to pass the next twenty-eight years of his life 
as Philip's prisoner, pupil, and hostage.* 

This was the signal for the wholesale execution of 
thousands of men and women — heretics, rebels, sus- 
pects, or plainly innocent. " No matter," said the 
monster Vargas, the Duke's right-hand man, " if the 
condemned man be innocent ; it will be easier for him 
when he is tried in the next world ! " ^' The heretics 
sacked the churches, the rest looked on, so all are 
guilty alike." This is not the place to rehearse the 
infamous trial and execution of Egmont and Horn, 
the horrors of Alva's Peign of Terror, and the brutal 
achievements of the Spanish Inquisition. It has been 
recounted with pardonable warmth of language by the 
American historian in a well-known passage, which it 
is convenient again to quote : — 

Tlie whole country became a charnel-house ; the death-bell 
t )lled hourly in every village ; not a family but vv^as called to 
mnir!! for its dearest relatives, while the survivors stalked 
listlessly about, the ghosts of their former selves, among the 

* See p. 37, note. 



AL V A— TE RROR— DEFEAT. 1 1 1 

wrecks of their former homes. The spirit of the nation, 
within a few months after the arrival of Alva, seemed hope- 
lessly broken. The blood of its best and bravest had alreadj^ 
stained the scaffold ; the men to whom it had been accustomed 
to look for guidance and protection were dead, in prison, or 
in exile. Submission had ceased to be of any avail, flight was 
impossible, and the spirit of vengeance had alighted at eveiy 
fireside. The mourners went daily about tlie street, for there 
was hardly a house that had not been made desolate. The 
scaffolds, the gallows, the funeral piles, which had been suffi- 
cient in ordinary times, furnislied now an entirely inadequate 
machinery for the incessant executions. Columns and stakes 
in every street, the door-posts of private houses, the fences in 
the fields, were laden with human carcases, strangled, burned, 
beheaded. The orchards in the country bore on many a tree 
the hideous fruit of human bodies. Thus the Netherlands 
ware crushed, and but for the stringency of the tyranny which 
had now closed their gates, would have been depopulated. 
The grass began to grow in the streets of those cities which 
had recently nourished so many artizans. In all those great 
manufacturing and industrial marts, where the tide of human 
life had throbbed so vigorously, there now reigned the silence 
and the darkness of midnight.* 

Such is indeed the language of indignant partisans 
on 'the Reformers' side, and it is doubtless over- 
colored. But no substantial disproof of the persecu- 
tion has been ever made bv Catholic apologists. And 
Alva is said to have boasted on his resignation that he 
had put to death 18,600 persons, not counting all who 
perished in fight, storm, siege, and massacre. 

The elaborate and historic documents in which the 
Prince had announced to the King, the Regent, and 

* Motley, Tlie Rise of the Dutch Republic, Part III., chap. i. 



112 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

his colleagues his intention to withdraw, contained 
the substantial truth and the true reasons for his act, 
Avrapped up in the verbiage of diplomatic euphemism. 
He knew for certain that Alva was approaching with 
an overpowering army, not only to crush rebellion 
and opposition, but to punish without mercy, to re- 
store Catholic orthodoxy, and to kill the Prince, his 
friends, and followers, ^o man knew so well how 
helpless was the country by itself to resist, and how 
savage a vengeance Philip had prepared. The recent 
massacres by the Regent's troops had effected a calm 
of terror and despair, and the royal authority was no 
longer challenged nor threatened. The Prince seems 
to have nursed a fond hope that such abject submis- 
sion might disarm even Philip's revenge ; and that, as 
he himself was formally neither Protestant nor rebel, 
diplomatic assurances might yet be of use. Outside 
the reach of Philip's troopers, he possessed nothing — 
neither home nor house, income nor estates — nothing 
but his barren titles of honor, and the kind words and 
good advice abundantl}" offered by his German 
cousins. He now committed the capital error — one 
of the few imprudences of his life — in leaving his 
son and heir in the University of Louvain. He seems 
to have hoped thus to avert or mitigate the confisca- 
tion of his estates, take from himself the imputation 
of being a refugee, or enable the Spaniards to accept 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 113 

the boy as his successor. It was a grievous fault, and 
grievously did Orange answer for his fault. 

It was on the 22d of April 1567 that the Prince 
hurriedly left his palace of Breda, on the approach 
of Xoircarmes' troops, and by easy stages withdrew 
to his brother John, in the ancestral castle of Dillen- 
burg. He was followed by his household and his 
vicious and crazv wife, Anne of Saxonv, who assailed 
him incessantly with reproaches and insults. He re- 
mained some months amongst his family, brooding 
over events, and awaiting the issue. He declined the 
offer of the King of Denmark to give him a safe 
asylum. And now he seriously bethought him of 
entering the Lutheran Communion. He writes to the 
Landgrave of Hesse that he wished to devote his 
leisure to studying the Scripture and to pious medita- 
tions, and he begs for a learned divine to assist his 
conversion. The Landgrave is only too happy to see 
such a disjX)sition, sends off his favorite preacher, and 
an invaluable work of ^elancthon, the Corpus Chrisf- 
ianae doctrinae. The letters show us the Prince now 
rapidly advancing in Evangelical orthodoxy. He 
loses a beloved sister, the Countess of Xuenar; he 
bears the ill-humors and violent demands of his un- 
worthv wife like a Christian and a gfentleman. She 
clamors to return to Breda, finding Dillenburg un- 
bearable. The Prince remonstrates, insists on her 
8 



114 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

remaining with him in her present condition ; and in 
September 1567, Maurice is born — destined to be for 
forty years the heroic upholder of his father's work, 
at last also Prince of Orange, and head of the Dutch 
Republic. This son was duly christened as Lutheran, 
the first of the Prince's children to receive the 
Protestant rite. 

The treacherous arrest of Egmont and Horn in the 
same month, the wholesale seizure of prominent re- 
formers, the institution of the Council of Blood, 
roused the Prince into active measures, and showed 
that all his forebodings fell short of the reality. In 
December he writes to the Duke of Saxony that 
armed resistance was not only justifiable, but inevita- 
ble, and he points out the danger that threatened 
Germany as well as the I^etherlands. In January 
1568 the Prince Avas solemnly summoned as rebel and 
traitor, and formally outlawed by ban. A few weeks 
later, by special order from Philip, and at the sugges- 
tion of Cardinal Granvelle, the boy-student. Count of 
Buren was seized and sent off to Spain, and never 
again saw his father's face. 

The Prince replied to the summons and outlawry 
by a long and somewhat oratorical piece, in Avhich he 
shows that it was null and void, as against all law and 
custom. He says the very suspicion of heresy is noAv 
treated as wiping out all services, and as proving all 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 115 

charges. The monstrous acts of the new Council of 
Blood, the seizure of Egmont and Horn, the ab- 
duction of his own son, and the abrogation of con- 
tracts, laws, rights, and customs, prove that the Duke 
of Alva is setting up, not the just authority of the 
King, but a lawless, personal tyranny. He throws 
back the summons in his face, and claims his right as 
a magnate of the Empire to be judged by the Em- 
peror, the electors, and other chiefs. Thus, in the 
sight of all men, did the Prince throw down the gage 
of battle to the death (3d March 1568). 

In the following month was issued his Justifica- 
tion, an elaborate document in nearly fifty pages, 
written, we are told, by himself, which is not true of 
the Apology of 1581 and many other manifestoes 
bearing his name. He had the assistance of the cele- 
brated Protestant divine, Languet, who probably sup- 
plied the theological common-places and the mottoes 
from the Psalms : — 

The wicked watchetli the righteous, and seeketh to slay him. 
But the Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn 
him when he is judged (Ps. xxxvii.) 

Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing : the Lord will 
abhor the bloody and deceitful man. Lead me, O Lord, 
in thy righteousness because of mine enemies (Ps. v.) 

They gather themselves together against the soul of the right- 
eous, and condemn the innocent blood. But the Lord is my 
defence ; and my God is the rock of my refuge (Ps. xciv.) 



116 WILLLOI THE SILENT. 

The Justification opens with a historic review of the Nether- 
lands, from the first introduction of the Edicts against the 
New Faith. The Prince is scrupulous to speak with re- 
spect of the late Emperor, and even as to Philip, he throws all 
blame upon the ro3"al ministers and agents. He speaks with 
pride of the services of his countrymen in the long war with 
France, and of the forty millions of florins that they contrib- 
uted to the service of the Crown. For the descent of the 
country from the heiglit of prosperity and loyalty to its pres- 
ent state of calamity and disturbance, he throws the whole 
responsibility on evil counsellors, especially on Cardinal Gran- 
velle. The Prince himself had consistently resisted all at- 
tempts to persecute and to introduce the Inquisition, by speech 
in Council, by remonstrance with the Regent, by his offers of 
resignation, by repeated letters to the King. If he had re- 
mained in any official position, it was solely by the refusal of 
Regent and King to relieve him ; for the Cardinal, like 
Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, desired to keep some popular noble 
in the ministry, well knowing how deeply he was hated. 
After the departure of the Cardinal, he (the Prince) was re- 
tained in office at the urgent entreaties of the Regent, little 
as he coveted such duties himself. He then inveighs against 
the Cardinal, who upheld the Edicts and Inquisition by which 
more than 50,000 persons had been cruelly put to death and 
driven into exile, so that the whole country was thrown into 
transports of rage and horror. 

He then gives a history of the conversion of the bishoprics 
which involved the revival of persecution, the mission to Spain 
of Montigny, and other deputations to protest against the In- 
quisition, the subsequent mission of Egmont, and the decision 
of the King to maintain the Catholic orthodoxy with all the 
rigor of the Spanish Inquisition. Tliis, and this alone, was 
the sole cause of the agitation, and not " the ambition or the 
machinations of the Prince." It was against this new form 
of religious persecution that the Federation of the Nobles 
was directed — a movement that did not originate with him, 
but the certain result of whicli the Prince had pressed on the 
Council. And the same of the Petition of the Nobles, which 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 117 

was a loyal remonstrance to the King to respect the ancient 
constitutions of the land. To throw the responsibility of the 
Confederation of Nobles on the Prince, who was not a member 
of it, to make him answerable for the acts of men, to whom 
lie never gave assistance, is to substitute jjro siimmo Jure, 
suinnian injuriam. No place, town, fortress, or government 
where the Prince was in actual command has ever broken out 
in insurrection, or into outrage to churches and ecclesiastics. 
The interview at Termonde was a friendly gathei-ing, where 
the letters of the Spanish Ambassador to the Regentwere dis- 
cussed, but no resolution was taken to resort to arms. He de- 
fends himself from many minor charges : from any complicity 
with Brederode, with the attack on Zeeland. with the insur- 
gents of Ostrawell. As to his work in pacifying the disturbed 
provinces and towns, the Prince speaks of it with pride as a 
just and wise measure of toleration, it being impossible to 
secure public peace, except by permitting the exercise of the 
new faith, even to the extent of their possessing temples of 
their own. How can a temple offend any man more than the 
building of a circular house 9 Audit is not more conducive to 
public peace and order that a congregation shoidd meet quietly 
in a temple of their own, rather than by public processions and 
open meetings. '* Such are the false and frivolous pretences 
whereon they now seek to ruin me, in spite of all my services 
and sacrifices and that of my warlike ancestors. They set at 
naught rights, law, custom, and rob me of my honor and my 
child, dearer to me than life. And all this is done not to my 
despite but that of the King, whose contracts and oaths they 
would trample under foot. May God grant His Majesty, by 
the light of His divine grace, to see and understand the pur- 
poses of his true and loyal servants, now so sorely calumniated, 
persecuted, and afflicted ! " 

This document was circulated in German, Latin, 
Dutch, English, and Spanish, as well as in the orig- 
inal French. Though it uses Evangelical forms, it is 
not the work of a theologian. It is the work essential- 



118 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Ij of a politician, of a diplomatist, and in substance 
is like a modern State paper at the opening of a war. 
William was one of the first politicians in modern 
Europe to understand the importance of political 
manifestoes addressed to the public opinion of 
Europe. The paper is in parts rhetorical in form, 
but essentially based on powerful arguments. In 
substance, its statements are true as well as con- 
vincing, though we cannot literally accept the truth 
of all his assertions as to his freedom from complicity 
with the acts of his friends. 

This defiance was followed by energetic action all 
along the line. The time indeed was ripe. Alva was 
revelling in slaughter by fire and by sword — his 
Lenten offering to his master and his God '^ will ex- 
ceed 800 heads." But, meanwhile. Orange had been 
using his year of exile in organising a general war. 
According to the confession of one of his captains, 
when a prisoner awaiting execution, it had been 
judged necessary to raise 200,000 florins, half of this 
to be found by Antwerp, the towns of Holland, and 
the rich refugees in England. The Prince found 
50,000 florins, Louis 10,000 ; John of Nassau pledged 
his lands ; the Prince pledged his plate and jewels ; 
help was expected from Germany; and envoys were 
sent to implore it from Elizabeth. An attempt to 
seize Alva by a coup de main failed. The plan of 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 119 

campaign was, that three independent expeditions 
should invade the Low Countries, from the south- 
west, from the east, and from the north. French 
Huguenots and Flemish refugees were to invade 
Flanders from Artois ; a second corps was to invade 
Limburg from the Rhine and the Meuse ; a third was 
to descend upon Friesland from the Ems. The 
Prince was to hold reserves on the Lower Rhine be- 
tween the two Eastern armies, and watch events. 

All of these expeditions were doomed to fail; the 
two former in immediate and bloody collapse. The 
first, an undisciplined rabble of some 2000 men, in 
Artois, were instantly driven out, cut to pieces, and 
the prisoners hanged. The second of nearly 3000 
men, who invaded Limburg, were almost as suddenly 
routed and slaughtered by a picked body of Span- 
iards, whom the Duke had detached to meet them. 
The third, under Louis of Xassau, had a momentary 
success, which it could not maintain or use. The fiery 
Louis had collected in Groningen, in Xorth Holland, 
a force of some 3000 horse and foot, against whom 
Alva sent two veteran corps of -iOOO men, with strict 
orders to act in concert, and not separately. One of 
these Louis, with great skill and courage, succeeded 
in entrapping in the dykes and morasses of the left 
bank of the Ems, cut them to pieces at Heiligerlee, 
killing their commander, Aremberg, but losing his 



120 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

own younger brother, Adolph. It was a gallant ex- 
ploit, which proved that Spanish veterans were not 
invincible^at least in the dykes of Holland; but it 
led to no result, and was saddened by the first victim 
offered vip by the family of I^assau. In the words of 
the Wilhelmusliedj, — 

Sijn siel in eeuwich leven 
Verwacht den jongsten dach. 

(His soul in life eternal 

Awaits the Last Day.) 

Alva was roused to fury by this reverse. He issued 
a fierce sentence of banishment against Orange, Louis, 
Hoogstraeten, and others, with confiscation of all 
their property — the revenues of the Prince being 
valued at 152,000 florins. Batches of eminent men 
were executed day by day, first Villars, the com- 
mander of the second expedition in Limburg, and 
then Count Egmont and Count Horn. Within a 
month, the Duke had reached [N'orth Holland at the 
head of a splendid army of 15,000 men. He found 
Louis near Groningen with a far inferior force that 
did not exceed 10,000 all told, ill-equipped, disor- 
ganised, and mutinous mercenaries. The battle that 
ensued at Jemmingen was a horrible butchery, which 
exterminated the entire command of Louis. He was 
caught in a trap, out-manoeuvred, deserted by his own 
men; and after doing all that wild valor, could effect 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 121 

on the field, just saved his own life at last by swim- 
ming across the Ems.* 

* Jemmingen was situated on the left bank of the Ems near 
the mouth of that river, and on a narrow peninsula. It was 
near the point, or cape, of this peninsula that Louis had posted 
his army, " as in the bottom of a sack." Thus he was shut 
up, on the one side being the river too deep and too wide for 
crossing, and on the other side the splendid army of twelve 
thousand Spanish veterans. No escape was possible, for the 
Dutch knew that mercy could no more be expected from their 
Spanish foes than from the waters of the impassable river. 
Yet at this point, on the eve of battle, on the verge of slaugh- 
ter, the troops broke out into open mutiny, clamoring for 
the arrears of their pay ; for they believed that there was 
money in the camp. Louis refused their demand, for the 
simple reason that he had no money. He then plainly showed 
them that they were in a critical position and they must 
choose at once between victory and massacre. 

One simple device might have saved the Dutch, had it not 
been neglected until too late : the dykes might have been cut 
so that the tide of the German Ocean would have rushed in 
and driven off the Spanish invaders. When the mutiny had 
been partly quelled, Louis ordered this to be done, and, with 
spade in hand, he began the work in person, while all the 
water gates were opened. But it was too late. By ten o'clock 
in the morning the waters of the flood had reached only knee 
high in shallow places, and waist high in deep places, when 
the Spanish musketeers, mounted carabineers, with a few 
" volunteers of distinction " charged on the untrained rebels 
who were at work upon the dykes, drove tliem back, and at 
once closed the water gates. Again and again Louis tried to 
drive the Spaniards from the dykes, but his troops, raw, 
mutinous, not over courageous, and not skilled in battle, were 
not able to dislodge the flower of the Spanish army. The 
latter held their ground until reinforcements arrived, and 
then the rebels were doomed, for there was not an avenue of 
escape open to them. Before the flight, however, Louis did 



122 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

The strategy and tactics of Alva were faultless ; his 
Spanish veterans fought like heroes ; all his combina- 

his utmost to rally his panic-stricken troops, and when the 
battery that guarded the road was deserted, he rushed to the 
cannons and fired them all with his own hand. His personal 
courage could not check the tide of Spanish victory, and the 
rebels were soon in full retreat, without the power of the 
least resistance, and no escape was possible. 

" It was not a battle," says Motley, "it was a massacre. 
Many of the beggars in their flight threw down their arms ; 
all had forgotten their use. Their antagonists butchered them 
in droves, while those who escaped the sword were hurled 
into the river. Seven Spaniards were killed, and seven thou- 
sand rebels. The swift ebb tide swept the huts of the perish- 
ing wretches in such numbers down the stream that the 
people of Embden knew the result of the battle in an incred- 
ibly short period of time. The skirmishing had lasted from 
ten o'clock till one, but the butchery continued mucli longer. 
It took time to slaughter even unresisting victims. Large 
numbers obtained refuge for the night upon an island in the 
river. At low water next day the Spaniards waded to them 
and slew every man. Many found concealment in hovels, 
swamps, and thickets, so that the whole of the following day 
was occupied in ferreting out and despatching them. There 
was so much to be done that there was work enough for all. 
' Not a soldier,' says, with great simplicity, a Spanish historian 
who fought in the battle, ' not a soldier, nor even a lad, who 
wished to share in the victory, but could find somebody to 
wound, to kill, to burn, or to drown.' The wounding killing, 
burning, drowning lasted two days, and very few escaped. 
The landward pursuit extended for tiu'ee or four leagues 
around, so tliat the roads and pastures were covered with 
bodies, with corselets, and other weapons. Count Louis him- 
self stripped off his clothes, and made his escape, when all 
was over, by swimming across the Ems. With the paltry 
remnant of his troops he again took refuge in Germany."— 
The Rise of the Dutch Republic, ii., 223. 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 123 

tions were exactly carried out; and, almost without 
loss, lie wiped out the principal force of the invaders 
in one bloody ruin. The Duke, still unsated, resolved 
to teach the country a memorable lesson in terror. 
AYith lire and sword, rape, plunder, and outrage, his 
army poured over the country, covering it with blood, 
ashes, and corpses. He was rewarded with a message 
from the Pope that his Holiness was much gratified to 
learn all that the Duke had done in the Xetherlands. 
He marched in triumph through Amsterdam to 
Utrecht, where he held a review of his army, nov/ 
consisting, we are told, of 30,000 infantry and 7000 
cavalry. 

Thus ended in utter ruin the first collective effort 
of war that the Prince had organised. It is impos- 
sible to doubt that the scheme was sin2:ularlv weak, 
that the Prince had overvalued his own forces, and 
no less fatally underrated those of the Duke. The 
three invading expeditions were separated, each from 
the other, bv no less than 150 miles, so that thev could 
not act in concert, or give or receive mutual help. 
The Duke, with disciplined forces outnumbering the 
invaders two or three times over, and in military 
qualities surpassing them as ten to one, was in the 
inner circle, with ample resources, equipment, 
stores, and material. It was the old story of a great 
master of war, at the head of a disciplined soldierj^, 



124 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

crushing isolated parties of unorganised and motley 
levies. Louis and many round him fought with des- 
perate courage, but large bodies of their so-called 
troops were unwilling to fight at all. Well might 
Alva say, '"'' He had tamed men of iron ; should he not 
tame men of butter \ " He had done so. And this 
makes his bloodthirsty vengeance the more wanton 
and savage. 

These crushing disasters did not dismay the Prince 
or his brother. A few days after the defeat, Orange 
writes thus to Louis : — 

We must have patience and not lose heart, submitting to 
the will of God, and striving incessantly, as I have resolved to 
do, come what may. With God's lielp, I am determined to 
push onward, and by next month I trust to be at our appointed 
rendezvous. Watch Alva closely, and contrive to join me as 
arranged," etc. And the chivalrous Louis writes to his agent 
in England: "Our army is partly dispersed and partly de- 
feated, but our heart is as good as ever, and we hoj)e soon, by 
the help of God, to have a better force than before to save the 
Church and the cause." William had sought before the battle 
to moderate the impetuosity of Louis, urged him to withdraw 
before Alva, and to fortify himself on the German frontier. 
After the defeat, William has no word but of affection, en- 
couragement, and counsel. The disaster had struck terror 
throughout the Netherlands, and turned the German princes 
into Job's counsellors. One after another called on the Prince 
to lay down his arms. '* Our friends and allies are all turned 
cold," wrote he to Louis. The Emperor formally summoned 
him to withdraw in peace. In a series of public and private 
manifestoes. Orange now appealed to rulers and to the people. 

On the execution of Egmont and Horn, the Prince (through 
his own agent) had addressed to the Emperor a most powerful 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 125 

and touching appeal. The savage terrorism of Alva, he says, 
cries to God for vengeance, and covers with dishonor the 
country and the King. Let the Emperor know the particulars 
of " this inhuman tragedy," the crowning act of which has 
been the execution of Egmont and Horn, and placing their 
heads on stakes in the public place. These acts of the Duke 
are a violation of the rights and ordinances of the Empire, as 
well as of every law, human and divine. It will be the min 
of the Netherlands, where the establishment of the Spaniards 
must be a standing menace to the Empire. Again, in a direct 
appeal to Maximilian, in August, 1568, he rehearses the story 
of "the atrocities committed by Alva and his sanguinary 
creatures, the inhuman executions and persecutions of thou- 
sands and thousands of innocent persons since his ill-omened 
arrival in this country." And again, with great skill, he 
presses on the Emperor the risks to the Empire of the planting 
of the Spanish slavery in the Netherlands. Even now, in 
diplomatic documents, the Prince avoids a direct attack on 
Philip, who himself about this time had the curious impudence 
to assure the Elector of Saxony " that he would be delighted 
to see the Prince justify himself and recover his estates. He 
can count on impartial justice, and it is not possible for him 
to suspect anything else from the Duke of Alva.'''* 

From the Emperor, William turned to Elizabeth, 
to whom he sent an envoy with an urgent appeal for 
help, " that the pure word of God might not be extir- 
pated by the incredible cruelties of Alva." He was 
no rebel ; he had taken up arms to defend the faith ; 
he himself had always felt a sincere desire to be of 
service to the Queen. From rulers he turned to the 
people, and he issued an elaborate manifesto and 
appeal to all comers, which is a summary of his 
previous Justification, giving a history of recent 



126 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

events and throwing the whole responsibility " on the 
indescribable wrongs and villainies daily perpetrated 
by the Duke and his people, so that a man with any 
self-respect would rather die than see before his eyes 
such cruelties and tryanny as now are practised." The 
paper was doubtless the work of a professional writer, 
and bore for inscription the 94th Psalm : " They 
gather themselves together against the soul of the 
righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. But the 
Lord is my defence ; and my God is the rock of my 
refuge." It was followed by a formal address to all 
subjects of the King in the l^etherlands, in which he 
inveighs against the introduction of the Inquisition 
and the attempt to establish a Spanish tyranny in a 
country having an ancient constitution of its own. 
His Majesty has been so utterly misled by the false 
witness and evil counsels of his Spanish advisers that 
the Prince and his friends have raised an army to 
resist them '^ for the honor of God, the propagation of 
His word, the protection of the faithful, the service of 
the King, the preservation of the country, the saving 
it from ruin, the maintaining its liberties and privi- 
leges, and to spare it the cruel tyranny of the Span- 
iards." And this document bore as legend the device 
which Orange now adopted on his banner, — Pro Lege, 
Rege, et Grcge (For Law, (King, and People). 
Throughout this series of manifestoes^ the Prince 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 127 

labors to show that he is not undertaking a rebellion; 
that he does not dispute the King's lawful authority ; 
that his aim is conservative, not revolutionary. To 
the jealous dignity of the Emperor, of the German 
dukes, of Elizabeth, in the eyes of the nobles, and 
even of the burghers of the E^etherlands, the armed 
resistance of Orange was a sheer act of rebellion 
against a lawful sovereign. He felt the difficulty 
and shared the sentiment, being himself a sovereign 
prince ; nor had he yet, even in thought, conceived the 
idea of an independent Republic. These documents 
were perhaps all of them, more or less, the work of 
trained men of letters ; but in substance they are the 
thoughts, and, to a great extent, the actual drafts of 
William himself. Diplomatic as they are, encum- 
bered with rhetoric, with subtleties and with euphem- 
isms, it cannot be denied that they all tell the same 
tale, and make the same appeal, whether addressed to 
Emperor, dukes. Queen, or people ; whether they be 
secret despatches or public manifestoes; whether 
meant for Germans, for Hollanders, for Flemings, or 
for Englishmen, for Catholics, or for Protestants. 
Adroit as is the pleading, violent as is the indignation, 
and variable as is the religious tone of them, they all 
coincide in this, that his single aim is to get rid of the 
horrible persecution and the Spanish tyranny ; to save 
the ancient constitution of the land, not to overturn 



123 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

it ; to give freedom to the new religion, not to make it 
supreme. 

Despairing of any help from Germany, or from 
England, and seeing into what a state of panic Alva 
had thrown the Flemish towns, the Prince turned Lo 
the Huguenots of France; and in AugTist 1568, he 
was negotiating a formal alliance with Coligny and 
Conde. They were to bind themselves to mutual suc- 
cor and support in the Low Countries and in France, 
in order to resist tyranny and maintain liberty of 
religion. Early in September the Prince had col- 
lected, it is said, 18,000 foot and 7000 cavalry, with 
fourteen cannon, round Treves — mostly German and 
Walloon mercenaries, ill-disciplined, and greedy of 
pay. These numbers are not trustworthy, and such an 
army would have but a fluctuating roll. Alva was 
ready for him, with an army about one-third less 
numerous, but greatly superior in quality. The 
tactics of the Duke were simply to wear down the 
Prince without coming to close quarters, till his 
mutinous and unpaid troops should disperse of them- 
selves. And in this the great Spanish captain was 
entirely successful. 

The Prince led his army with skill and foresight, 
and surprised the Duke by crossing the Meuse on to 
Flemish soil. For a month the Prince sought to bring 
on an engagement, changing his camp from day lo 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 129 

day; but the Duke as continually foiled him, and 
avoided battle. On 20tli October Alva succeeded in 
cutting off William's rear-guard and destroyed a force 
of 3000 men. The inevitable v^^ant of money, provi- 
sions, reinforcements, and material caused violent dis- 
content, v^hich broke out into incessant mutinies. 
Not a man stirred in the terrorised towns ; the 
promised contributions did not arrive. The consum- 
mate strategy of Alva had triumphed almost without 
a blow. The large army of Orange was melting away, 
or threatening his life in their tumults. 

Having penetrated into Brabant, where he reached 
a point within a few leagues of Brussels, between the 
battlefields of Bamillies and Waterloo, the Prince 
found that he had effected nothing, nor obtained any 
sign of help, and therefore he decided to disband the 
greater part of his force, and with the wretched rem- 
nant to throw himself into France. He was now at 
the mercy of his own soldiers, who were without food, 
supplies, clothes, or pay, clamoring for arrears, and 
refusing even to disband without them. Of the 300,- 
000 florins promised from the E'etherlands, he had 
not received 12,000. To Charles IX. he wrote eva- 
sive and humble letters that he had entered France 
" as a sincere well-wisher and servant. '^ As the dark 
year 1568 had closed, the condition of the Prince 
seemed utterly hopeless. " Orange is a dead man," 



130 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

wrote the Protestant Languet ; '^ his men desert him, 
and threaten to cut his throat and sack his ancestral 
domain" ; '^ he will be caught and annihilated as was 
his brother at Jemmingen." However, he managed 
to make his Avay to Strassburg; sold his remaining 
plate and mortgaged his last domain, to pay his 
mercenaries. '' We may regard the Prince now as a 
dead man," wrote Alva to Philip ; ^' he has neither 
influence nor credit." '' They are broken, famished, 
cut to pieces " [desechos^ liambreados, degollada la 
mayor parte de su gente]. 

It was but too true. In a few months his large 
army, once estimated even by his enemies at 30,000 
men, had vanished ; 8000 of them had perished miser- 
ably without any loss to the Spaniards. His last 
stiver was gone, his last estate mortgaged, his very 
person had been pledged to pay his angry mercenaries. 
But he did not abandon the cause for free religion. 
The three brothers, William, Louis, and Henry a lad 
of eighteen, flung themselves into the Huguenot cam- 
paign in France, with a few followers, and served 
with Conde. Louis and Henry were in the bloody 
defeat of Jarnac,* w^here Conde fell. William was 

* When Conde arrived at the field of Jarnac — which, despite 
its importance was a skirmisli rather than a battle — with an 
arm already crushed b}' a fall, he was further disabled by the 
kick of a horse that broke his leg. Tlie story of his part in 
the fight is thus given by the Due D'Auniale : — 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 131 

awaj and had no part in the fight. They all then 
joined Colignj, and took part in the disastrous cam- 

" Conde turned round to his men-at-arms, and showing first 
his Injured limbs and then the device, ' Stceet is the danger 
for Christ and for fatherland.^ which fluttered upon his ban- 
ner in the breeze, cried, ' Nobles of France, this is the desired 
moment ! Remember in what plight Louis of Bourbon enters 
the battle for Christ and for fatherland ! ' Then, lowering 
his head, he charges with his three hundred horse upon the 
eight hundred lances of the duke of Aiijou. The first shock 
of his charge was irresistible ; such for a moment was the 
disorder among the Catholics that many of them believed the 
day was lost ; but fresh bodies of roj'alists arrive one after 
another. The prince has his horse killed under him ; and in 
the midst of the confusion, hampered by his wounds, he can- 
not mount another. In spite of all, his brave comrades do 
not desert liim ; Soubise, and a dozen of them, covered with 
wounds, are taken ; an old man, named La Yergne, who had 
brought with him twenty-five sons or nephews, is left upon 
the field with fifteen of them, ' all in a heap,' says D'Aubigne. 
Left almost alone, with his back against a tree, one knee upon 
the ground, and deprived of the use of one leg, Conde still 
defends himself ; but his strength is failing him ; he sees two 
Catholic gentlemen to whom he had rendered service, Saint- 
Jean and D'Argeance ; he calls to them, raises the vizor of 
his helmet and holds out to them his gauntlets. The two 
horsemen dismount and swear to risk their lives to save his. 
Others join them and are eager to assist the glorious captive. 
Meanwhile the royal cavalry continues the pursuit ; the 
squadrons successively pass close by the group which has 
formed round Conde. Soon he spies the red cloaks of tlie 
duke of Aiijou's guards. He points to them with his finger. 
D'Argeance understands him and cries, ' Hide your face ! ' 
' Ah, D'Argeance, D'Argeance, you will not save me,' replies 
the prince. Then, like Caesar, covering uf) his face, he awaited 
death ; the poor soul knew only too well the perfidious char- 
acter of the duke of Anjou, the hatred with which he was 



132 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

paign in the heart of France that led to the rout of 
Montcontour.* Here again Louis distinguished him- 
self with heroic energy both in the battle and in the 
desperate retreat; but the Prince had left the army 
some days before on a secret mission. His German 
followers were again mutinous; he himself regarded 
the Huguenot rising as without aim or hope ; he told 
Brantome that he saw no hope in this expedition, but 

hunting him down, and the bloody orders he would give. 
The guards had gone by when their captain, Montesquiou, 
learned the name of this prisoner. ' Slay, slay, moerdioux ! ' 
he shouted. Then, suddenly wheeling his horse round, he 
returns at a gallop and, with a pistol shot fired from behind, 
shatters the hero's skull." 

* The battle of Moncountour, near Poitiers in west-central 
France, was fought between the Catholics under the duke of 
Anjou and the Huguenots under Coligny, October 2-3, 1569. 
The battle was fouglit with great acrimony, especially on the 
part of the Catholics, the Huguenots suffering a disastrous de- 
feat, their commander being severely wounded. Coligny was 
wounded in the action after having killed with his own hand 
the Marquis Philibert of Baden ; and the melee had been so 
hot that the admiral's friends found great difficulty in extri- 
cating him and carrying him off the field to get his wound 
attended to. Three weeks before the battle, on the 13th of 
September, Coligny had been sentenced to death by the par- 
liament of Paris and hanged in effigy in the Place de Greve ; 
and a reward of 50,000 gold crowns [about $55,000] had been 
offered to whosoever should give him up to the king's justice 
dead or alive, these words, it was said, being added to the 
decree at the desire of Charles IX. liimself." Guizot. 

Coligny so far recovered from his wound that by the fol- 
lowing summer he was able to march through the south and 
centre of France with his reorganized army. 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 133 

that lie should appear again. Even now it is not clear 
how, why, or whither he went. He is said to have 
made his way in disguise across France into Ger- 
many. Some said he was gone to La Rochelle ; others 
said to England to see Elizabeth ; others declared he 
was to head a rising in the Netherlands. None of 
these are at all likely. He was no doubt bent on 
organising from Germany a new force to resist 
Philip, and experience taught him how little was to 
be expected from the Huguenots of France. He was 
now apparently dogged by hired assassins, whom he 
sought to escape. It is certain that his mysterious 
disappearance in the crisis of a campaign seriously 
impaired his reputation with friend and with foe. 
And a chorus of exultation and derision rose from the 
Spanish side at what they called the flight and degra- 
dation of their arch enemy. 

In his own days and in ours the opponents of the 
Prince have spoken slightingly of his courage and his 
military qualities, especially of his excessive prudence 
in the field. As to his personal bravery, it seems 
ridiculous to doubt it of a man whose whole life was 
one of hairbreadth escapes from furious mobs and 
relentless enemies, who chose a career of incessant war 
and combat when he might have gone to live quietly 
with John in Nassau, who boldly faced raging fana- 
tics at Antwerp and Amsterdam, and mutinous 



131 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

troopers in a dozen camps, who lived cheerfully for 
years surrounded by murderous conspirators and 
hired assassins. But it is certain that he felt none of 
the joy of battle that throbbed in the soul of his gal- 
lant brother Louis, or his chivalrous rival, Egmont. 
He never had loved battle with his peers ; he was 
always for the tactics of Fabius, and not of Hotspur. 
But his resources as a tactician must have been of a 
high order, for he had commanded large armies 
against Coligny and also against Alva, without ever 
having in battle been defeated by either of these great 
masters of war. 

In the higher field of comprehensive strategy he 
must be judged to be wanting. His grand campaign 
against Alva, even with superior numbers, was a 
melancholy failure, doomed to defeat from first to 
last, with an impracticable plan, that was constantly 
varied or abandoned. Even the accumulated disasters 
did not open his eyes to the uselessness of opposing 
such a general as Alva at the head of such disciplined 
veterans by a promiscuous levy of German and Wal- 
loon hirelings, serving for pay and plunder under a 
private flag. It is, no doubt, equally true that he 
could get no others. Had he the genius for war of 
Cromwell he might have seen, as did Oliver at Edge- 
hill, that nothing could be done " with such fellows " ; 
that he needed "' men who had some conscience in 



ALVA— TERROR— DEFEAT. 135 

their work.*' Orange had not Oliver's genius for war. 
As Granvelle wrote sneer ingly to Philip, '* The Prince 
has no head for such things ; he writes too many mani- 
festoes for a man of action." It is true that he was 
not a great soldier, but he was a great statesman. And 
his very want of genius for war throws still more 
glory on his greater genius as a statesman, as his 
excessive caution in the field heightens our sense of 
that indomitable resolution to persevere for the cause 
which he beheld defeated in a hundred combats. 

Seldom has a chief of men withdrawn more utterly 
ruined, discredited, and abandoned than was William 
of Orange as he made his lonelv wav back to Xassau. 
He was now indeed the '' Prince without land " of 
the legend. He had neither estate, nor resources, nor 
friends, nor home. He was actuallv driven out of his 
ancestral home to wander up and down, as even the 
vast castle of Dillenburg, with its miscellaneous popu- 
lation, was not considered to be safe as a residence. 
The German princes all turned from him ; the Luth- 
eran preachers denounced the Calvinists as rebels who 
ought to be destroyed, and reproached him for having 
to do with such sacrilegious ruffians. From his re- 
treat at Amstadt he wrote to his brother John, 
** Whilst our adversaries are still at work, we seem to 
be asleep. Unless God work a miracle in our behalf, 
there will be an ?nd of religion for many a long day. 



136 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

For no man will risk himself in its behalf, when thej 
see how soft and without heart are they who might 
preserve it" \_la flossete et peiL de corage^. Humor 
had it that the Prince was dead. A Spanish council- 
lor believed it, and wrote, '' We need fear no more 
when the head is gone." But William was not dead, 
nor was he sleeping. He was still laboring inces- 
santly, nor, whatever others did, did he lose hope and 
heart. 



CHAPTER VL 

IN EXILE AND AFFLICTION THE NASSAU FAMILY. 

156Y-1580. 

In the worst crisis of his fortunes, the forlorn 
Prince was afflicted with sore trouble at the hands of 
his unworthy wife. Anne of Saxony, the young bride 
of seventeen, whom, in 1561, he had brought home to 
Breda, " happy as a queen," had turned out a thorn 
in the side of a husband now embarked in a disastrous 
struggle. Anne, though not wanting in ability or 
energy, was proud, jealous, sensual, and intensely 
selfish. Regarding herself as a member of the sov- 
ereign caste, she showed violent ill-humor that she was 
not so treated in the Flemish Court. After three 
years of marriage, the Prince told the Regent in con- 
fidence that his wife was leading a strangely morbid 
existence. A year later the extravagance of her con- 
duct and the misery of their home was notorious ; and 
William asked his brother to consult the Elector of 
Saxony as to what should be done for his niece. Year 
after year the Prince remonstrated with her and ap- 

137 



138 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

pealed to her relations in vain. She treated him Avith 
insolence, ^' as if he were a lackey or a negro " — " for 
a Nassau was more fit to be her domestic than her 
husband " — publicly complaining, scolding, and 
thwarting him, and at last ogling her favorites in his 
presence. 

The patience with which he bore her insults is 
treated by the hostile writers as little to the husband'.^ 
credit, and even by his friends it was regarded as 
weakness. When he was driven out of the jSTether- 
lands in 1567, she loaded him with reproaches of 
cowardice. At Dillenburg, she made herself intoler- 
able to the ]^assau family, who so hospitably received 
her and her retinue, shut herself up, and repaid their 
goodness with contempt. Her condition, whilst her 
husband was away, a penniless outcast fighting for a 
cause apparently hopeless, was certainly one to try the 
nature of a wife of the birth and nurture of Anne. 
She railed, intrigued, and quarrelled ; and at last, 
against the wish of her husband and his family, she 
eloped to Cologne, where she took up her abode with a 
somewhat ample retinue of twenty-two persons. Here 
she abandoned herself to intrigue, ill-temper, and 
vice. 

Her husband, her uncle, her relations, made con- 
stant efforts to reclaim the wretched woman. Augus- 
tus of Saxony sent a confidential agent to see her, and 



THE NASSAU FAMILY. 139 

then to report to John of i^assau. They advised her 
to submit to her husband and return to Dillenburg. 
This she obstinately refused, and proceeded again to 
appeal to the Elector, to the Landgrave of Hesse, to 
the Emperor at Vienna, and even at last to Alva him- 
self. She told them that the Prince being civilly dead 
as an outlaw, she was a widow and entitled to a 
widoAv's estate. In 1569 William wrote a fine appeal 
to his wife. 

Why had she refused to return to him, as he had so often • 

asked her to do ? Had she not promised before God and the 
Church to leave all things on earth and cleave to her husband ? 
He would no more ask her to come back, but he was bound 
to remind her of her duty and her vows. When a man is 
sunk in troubles, there is no consolation so sweet as that 
which a wife can give, — to see her patiently bearing the cross 
which the Almighty has given her husband to bear, and all 
the more when he is suffering to advance the glory of God 
and purchase the liberty of his country. There was very 
much he desired to say to her, which he dared not write, and 
his friends had warned him against coming to any place where 
he might be seized. If she would meet him at Frankfort, he 
would come. Would that in his misery he might have the 
pity of his wife, and not be left to strangers ! She had sug- 
gested to him to take refuge in France or in England. Alas I 
the poor Christians in France w^ere like to be in as sore strait 
as those of the Netherlands — or even worse. And as to Eng- 
land, he would not write, but he could show her how hopeless 
was that thought. They could no longer choose an asylum. 
The question was who would receive them. Neither sovereign 
nor free city would take them — neither the Queen of England, 
nor the King of Denmark, nor the King of Poland, nor the 
Princes of Germany, now that he is threatened with the ban 
of the Empire. Of all this he would be glad to speak, if they 



140 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

could meet ; but, to save his life, he is obliged to be continu- 
ally passing from place to place. It would relieve him to see 
her, even for a day or two, in the affliction that he endures. 
His future is uncertain ; it is in the hands of the Almighty, 
who has laid this trial on him for his sins. Would that His 
Holy Spirit might give both him and her guidance to act so 
as they shall be able to answer for their actions in the Last 
Day. 

To this and many another such appeal from her 
husband Anne returned evasive and insolent replies, 
obstinately refusing to leave Cologne, and growing 
more and more outrageous in her tone. At last, in 
1570, William, in a pathetic letter to the Landgrave 
of Hesse, sends him the whole correspondence, declar- 
ing that it is more than he can endure, in all the 
trouble which is racking his brain, to find that instead 
of comforting him in his disasters, his wife is pouring 
a thousand curses on his head. Let it be seen whose 
fault it is ; for he, William, will swear on his soul 
that he desired only to live with her according to 
God's ordinance. They seem to have met once; hut 
the only object of Anne was to obtain money for her 
wasteful household. 

She had now formed a guilty connection with John 
Rubens, a refugee from Antwerp, and father of the 
painter. He fully confessed his guilt, and when ar- 
rested, asked only for death by the sword. Her letters 
exist proving the amour, of which a child was born, a 
child never recognised by the family. The miserable 



THE NASSAU FAMILY. 141 

woman had long been tlie victim of her passions — she 
had taken to drink, to scandalous excesses of all kind. 
She had no doubt seduced the unfortunate secretary, 
as her family seemed to believe. The Hassans by 
their local law were entitled to put to death her 
adulterer, if not both. They imprisoned Rubens for 
some years, and sent Anne into seclusion, her children 
being removed and carefully brought up by John at 
Dillenburg. She became more violent and crazy, a 
burden and shanie to all her relations, attempting the 
lives of those about her. She was now obviously 
insane. The Prince regarded her as dead; spoke of 
her as celle de Saxe, jadis ma femme,^ and handed 
her over to her own blood relations. She was taken 
charge of by her uncle, the head of her paternal house, 
the Elector of Saxony. Augustus, according to the 
barbarous habits of the age, shut her in a dungeon, 
where food was passed through an aperture, and a 
preacher attended daily to expound the word through 
a grating, and improve her soul. After six years of 
confinement, the wretched woman expired in 1577, a 
confirmed maniac. Such was the end of William's 
alliance with the great House of Saxony, which six- 
teen years before had so stirred the ofiicial world in 
Grermany and Spain. 

In his extremity William of Orange found a broth- 

* That Saxon woman, formerly my wife. 



142 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

eriy helper in the very worthy John of Nassau, now 
Chief of the House of Dillenhurg. The ancestral 
castle was always a home to the outlawed Prince ; here 
was received the wavward wife and all her household, 
and here the family were constantly gathered to- 
gether. The venerable mother still lived, a beautiful 
and pathetic figure in this true-hearted and affection- 
ate race. Juliana of Stolberg, the mother of ^ve sons 
and seven daughters by William of i^assau the elder, 
was the type of the loving, thoughtful, stalwart. God- 
fearing matron of the Lutheran age. Her noble 
letters which remain breathe in every line a mother's 
tenderness, deep piety, and unshaken fortitude. She 
consults William — \_mein herzlieber Her und Sohni 
— about the education of her youngest son, and many 
other family arrangements — she too is often con- 
sulted by him. She writes to the Prince and to Louis 
letters of intense love and profound devotion. There 
is a strange pathos in her quaint old German in its 
uncouth spelling. She took a keen interest in every 
phase of the great struggle — but with her it was al- 
ways and essentially a struggle for religion: — 

" Put your trust in God alone ; He only can save lyou and 
yours ; they who put their confidence and hope in Him will 
never more be forsaken [dan die iren vordrauen und hofnung 
7if Im setzen, die werden in eivigkeit nit verlossen] . I pray 
God to strengthen the good people in Haarlem. My mother's 
heart is ever with you, dear love. [Hertzallerliebster HeVy 



THE NASSAU FAMILY. 143 

mein meutterlich hertz ist allezeit bei, E. L.]" When the 
Prince is attempting to negotiate with the French king, the 
mother implored him not to trust in any help that may be 
against God (it was after St. Bartholomew). " God can save 
when all earthly aid is gone. He will never abandon His 
own." After the fatal defeat of Mookheath, she writes with 
resignation in her anguish. " Verily I am a wretched woman 
[binworlicheynbetreubtesweib] ; and never can I be delivered 
out of my wretchedness until the dear God shall take me to 
Himself out of this valley of tears, which from my heart I 
pray Him may be soon." 

With such resignation to the will of God she saw the death 
of three sons in battle for the cause. When Don John in 1577 
was making overtures for peace to the Prince, the aged mother 
writes thus to her son (she was then seventy-four) : " I sorely 
fear that the promised pacification may be a source of harm 
to souls and all, for Satan goeth about like a prowling wolf 
in a sheepskin, and will bring destruction on many a pious 
Christian. But our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all power in 
heaven and in earth has been committed by His Heavenly 
Father, is able to deliver oat of every strait those wlio call on 
Him and trust Him in tlieir hearts. It is better to lose things 
here on earth than to lose that which is eternal [Es ist besser 
das zeitlich dan das eivig zu verliereri] . I pray my lord and 
dear love to look to the inner truth of things, and not to be 
deceived by fair words into being led into a place that may 
be fraught with peril, for the world is full of deceitfulness 
[dan die tvelt ist listig.y^ 

So she continued, counselling and praying for her 
great son to the last, and died at the age of seventy- 
seven, in 1580, just before the issue of the Ban, leav- 
ing an immense number of descendants, and a name 
of spotless devotion to her duty, her family, and her 
creed. There exists a fine portrait of her in old age — 
a thoughtful and stately dame. She was as tender as 



144 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

she was judicious, as indefatigable as she was wise. 
But her dominant character is an intense personal 
piety and Gospel religion, which in weal and in woe 
she ever pressed upon her children. She was the 
Puritan saint in the martyr family of I^^assau. 

The sons were worthy of such a mother. John, 
now the Lord of Dillenburg, though three years 
younger than his brother the Prince, was a fine type 
of the Lutheran magnate. Lie resembled his mother 
in devotion to his family, in sterling good sense, in 
active self-sacrifice, and in genuine piety. His let- 
ters are more full than any others of the brethren of 
evangelical religion, of practical judgment, and con- 
siderate benevolence. He deeply burdened his 
family estate, and ruined himself in a cause which 
was not his own, nor that of his OAvn fatherland. He 
flung himself with ardor into the Prince's undertak- 
ings, though he was constantly seeking to restrain the 
more dangerous adventures, and to counsel prudence. 
His letters are almost as biblical as those of his mo- 
ther, and have more worldly wisdom than those of 
his brother Louis. Whilst William, Louis, Adolph, 
and Henry are fighting the Spaniard and rousing 
the people, John was making himself the father of 
the whole clan, and his castle was their refuge in 
need. He busies himself with the education of his 
younger brothers and sisters ; and after the disgrace 



THE NASSAU FAMILY. 145 

of Anne lie carefully and tenderly brought up the 
children of the Prince. He was invaluable as an 
envoy and mediator, and labored with energy and 
skill to gather the German magnates to the aid of his 
brother and the cause. He is continually addressing 
the chiefs around him by missive or in person, and 
was also employed in negotiating with France. In 
all this, especially after the death of Lbuis, John 
'^ was the Prince's right arm." 

The two elder brothers passed their stormy lives 
in mutual affection and perfect trust. John regards 
William as his royal chief ; William treats John as 
his ever-trusty brother in counsel and in arms. But 
William is loth to expose John to the risks which all 
the other brothers met by night and day. ^' How 
can we venture to lose the last stay of our house ? Is 
it not indispensable to have at any rate one left to 
maintain relations with the princes of Germany, and 
the other sovereigns and cities ? 'No one can do this 
office better than you, from the entire love you bear 
our just cause, and also from your intimate knowl- 
edge of all our negotiations and affairs." Over and 
over again the Prince will not suffer John to run the 
risks which were the very breath of life to Louis. He 
insists on his renouncing a perilous journey. ^^ It 
would be the greatest disaster which could befall our 

House if any untoward accident befall you, which 
10 



146 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

may God avert ! " " Do not hesitate to open letters 
addressed to me. Your love for me and the absolute 
confidence between us make me feel that I cannot 
have any secrets from you." 

Accident removed him from the fatal field of Mook- 
heath,"^ so that John did not share the doom of Louis 
and Henry. He alone of the five brothers lived out 
his life, and died in honor and peace at the age of 
seventy. William Frederick, a grandson of John, 
married i^gnes, a grand-daughter of William, and 
from them has descended the royal House of Holland, 
so often allied to the English and other royal houses 
of Europe. John had neither the genius nor the iron 
tenacity of William, nor had he the chivalrous enthu- 
siasm of his younger brothers. But he v^as an affec- 
tionate, true-hearted, religious inan, of sterling good 
sense, homely wit, and honorable nature. A- fine por- 
trait in later life records his outer man as that of a 
stalwart, honest, solid German chief, somewhat over- 
whelmed at times by the tremendous vortex of care 
into which his life was plunged. 

The next brother was Louis, nearly ^ve years 
younger than the Prince, the Bayard of the Nassau 
race. His heroism in the field, his fascination of 
manner, his chivalrous frankness, made him the idol 
of all with whom he served. The Landgrave " adored 
* See p. 149, note. 



THE NASSAU FAj^IILY. 147 

him as a demi-god ; '^ the Hollanders continually 
called for him. *' Bref tout le pays vous attend 
comme un ange Gabriel/''^ wrote William to his loved 
brother, his sword, his mouthpiece, his pride. Louis 
began campaigning at the age of twenty in the great 
victory of St. Quentin, and thenceforth on a hundred 
fields he showed romantic courage and unconquerable 
buoyancy of soul. Smaller and slighter than Wil- 
liam, he had a frank and handsome face, with a 
singular resemblance to Sir Philip Sidney, who died 
in the same cause a few years later almost in the 
same field. f His bright countenance was never so 
radiant as in the thick of a desperate melee. He had 
much of the charm and eloquence of his brother, but 
little of his sagacity and nothing of his prudence. He 
was the life of incessant combinations, many of 
which William could not countenance, and most of 
which broke down from causes which a less sanguine 
temper could foresee.:}: 

* " In short, the whole country is waiting for you like an 
angel Gabriel." 

f Zutphen is about thirty-five miles northeast of Mook. 

X Sir Philip Sidney, who for more than three centuries past 
has represented the highest type of English chivalry, and 
will doubtless continue to be regarded the ideal of knightly 
courtesy and valor for ages to come, received his mortal 
wound at the battle of Zutphen. a town situated in the 
province of Gelderland. Netherlands, on the 22nd of Septem- 
ber, 1586. The account of t)ie disaster is as follows :— " Sid- 
ney, leading a troop of two hundred horsemen, pushed its 



148 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Louis, like the rest of the ]^assaus, was born and 
educated a Lutheran. But he came in manhood to 
full sympathy with the Calvinists, and had more in 
common with the Huguenots of France than with 

way up to the walls of Zutphen. Chivalrous punctilio caused 
liim to be ill defended ; for, meeting Sir William Pelham in 
light armor, he threw off his cuisses [armor for the thighs] 
and thus exposed himself to unnecessary danger. The autumn 
fog, which covered every object, suddenly dispersed ; and the 
English now found themselves confronted by a thousand 
horsemen of the enemy, and exposed to tlie guns of the town. 
They charged, and Sidney's horse was killed under him. He 
mounted another and joined in the second charge. Rein- 
forcements came up, and a third charge was made, during 
which he received a wound in the left leg. The bullet, which 
some supposed to have been poisoned, entered above the knee, 
broke the bone, and lodged itself high up in the thigh. His 
horse took fright, and carried him at a gallop from the field. 
He kept his seat, however ; and when the animal was brought 
to order, had himself carried to Leicester's station. On the 
way occurred the incident so well known to every one who is 
acquainted with his name. ' Being thirsty with excess of 
bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought 
him ; but as he was putting the bottle to liis mouth, he saw 
a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the 
same feast, ghastly casting up liis eyes at the same bottle, 
which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he 
drank, and delivered it to the poor man with tliese words, 
Tliy necessity is yet greater tlian mine. And when he had 
pledged this poor soldier, he was presently carried to Arn- 
heim.'" J. Addington Symonds, Sydney, p. 170. 

At Arnheim the brave man — courtier, scholar, poet, general 
— lingered about two weeks, and died on the 7th of October. 
The bullet may have been poisoned, but his death is more 
likely due to the want of skill in the surgeons than to poison 
in the bullet. 



THE NASSAU FAMILY. 149 

the German Lutherans. With the French Eeform- 
ers he was so completely at home that he was looked 
on as a probable successor of their great chief, the 
Admiral Colignj. Louis was sincerely religious, 
and saturated with the biblical ideas of his fellow- 
Reformers ; but this did not prevent him from being 
the boon companion and idol of such wild spirits as 
Brederode, or the gay courtier in the palaces and 
chateaux of France. He carried on incessant ne- 
gotiations with the German and French princes, and 
even with Elizabeth and Charles IX. Walsingham 
wrote home that he was eloquent and Insinuating as 
he was open and loyal. Though he was the soul of a 
dozen confederacies, he never lost his character for 
straightforwardness and honor. His noble letter to 
Charles IX., a solemn warning, says Michelet, ad- 
dressed by a dying man to a dying man, remains to 
this day as a monument of his bold and earnest heart. 
He fascinated all w^hom he addressed, as he inspired 
all whom he led to battle. His banners were inscribed 
— Nunc aut nunquam: Recuperare aut mori.^ 
Skilful as a captain, he was capable, like his kinsman, 
Prince Rupert, of sublime imprudence as a comman- 
der. Indefatigable and ingenious in negotiations, he 
was continually foiled by events and outwitted by his 
inferiors. His heroic and brilliant career came to an 
* '' Now or never : to conquer or die ! " 



150 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

early end in the fatal swamps of the Mookerheide, 
where he perished miserably at the age of thirty-six 
along with his young brother Henry. Kone knew 
how or where they fell, or where their bodies lay.* 

Adolph, the next brother, had died six years before 
this, in the victory of Heiligerlee, in his twenty- 
eighth year. He too from his early youth had taken 
arms in the Protestant cause, and had fought against 
the Turks. His bearing was gallant, his character 

* The place Mookerheide, or Mooker Heath, or Mook, situ- 
ated in Brabant near the left bank of the river Meuse, is made 
historic by this disastrous battle. Louis would have avoided 
the battle had it been possible ; but, while the two armies 
were waiting, facing eacli other, the arrival of six thousand 
fresh troops to reinforce the Spanish army, roused the enthu- 
siasm of the Spaniards to such an extent that they decided to 
risk the crucial test of a pitched battle. At the first onset of 
the Spaniards, the Dutch were utterly routed. Louis then 
made a counter charge with his cavalry with such success 
that those who ran away carried tlie news to Grave that the 
patriots liad won a complete victory. But " before the patriots 
had time to reload their pieces after the first discharge [with 
the awkward arms of that age the reloading required consid- 
erable time] the Spanish lancers and German troopers, who 
were still fresh, set on them, and a short bloody action fol- 
lowed. Louis, Henry of Nassau, and Duke Christopher rallied 
a few troopers around them, and made one more charge. It 
was their last. No one ever knew what became of any one 
of the three. For a long time it was hoped that they were 
either in captivity or hiding, and the Elector Palatine offered 
large sums in ransom." William " continued to make plans 
about his brothers, ' if they be still in life.' It seemed impos- 
sible for him to accept the fact that the silence was indeed 
never to be broken." 



THE NASSAU FAMILY. 151 

noble and modest. At Heiligerlee, says Languet, 
victory was saddened by the loss of Count Adolph — 
'' praestantissimum juvenemJ^ Fighting in the 
front of battle, he encouraged by his example his men, 
who were wavering, and did much to give his brothers 
this victory by his valor and his blood." 

Henry, the Benjamin of the Nassau House, was by 
no less than seventeen years younger than tlje Prince, 
who had taken the most lively interest in the educa- 
tion of the lad. The mother felt the deepest anxiety 
for the youngest of her children, and letters are con- 
tinually passing from her to William, Louis, and the 
others as to the best mode of training the last hope of 
the house. Like all the rest, he had a thoroughly 
scholar-like education ; but at the age of nineteen he 
joined his brothers William and Louis in the disas- 
trous campaign against Alva and Anjou, which ended 
at Jarnac and Montcontour. He continued to fight 
with honor at the side of Louis, and perished with 
him in an unknown swamp in the cruel rout of Mook. 
He was but twenty-three. Two months after the 
battle the aged mother writes a piteous letter that she 
can learn nothing of the fate of her " hertzliehen sohn 
Heynrichen ; " " but God's will be done on earth, 
and let us pray that in His mercy and loving kindness 
we may all be gathered to Him in eternity." 



CHAPTEK VII. 

BEGGARS OF THE SEA BRILL ST. BARTHOLOMEW 

DEFEAT. 

1569-15'72. 

Though the Prince had been completely foiled by 
the Royalist troops of Spain and of France, though 
he had withdrawn from the field into a secret retreat, 
it was only that he might more ardently devote him- 
self to his true task, that of organising a new resis- 
tance to the oppressor. '^ The spirits of all men are 
so crushed,'' wrote Languet, '' that their only hope is 
in the clemency of a most savage tyrant." Orange 
alone did not despair. His activity was prodigious, 
and in less than two years he threw Alva himself into 
great embarrassment. 

He worked day and night, sending despatches and 
emissaries in every quarter — to England, Cleves, Ger- 
many, to the Hanse towns, to the Dutch towns, hav- 
ing secret interviews with his agents there, and issu- 
ing commissions to trusty officers, civil and military, 

152 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 153 

to act in his name. He sold and pawned, borrowed 
and begged, to raise funds. Alva said, ^^ The Prince 
will have much ado to escape from his creditors." 
He had pledged his own person, William wrote ; but 
if they hold him to a known place of residence, all 
may be lost. Will not the Duke of Saxony take a 
certain casket in payment of 6000 florins ? As to 
the debt of 10,000 florins, he can do no more. Can- 
not John find a sound horse to send him; and where 
are his trunk hose that went to be mended ? His two 
expeditions of 1568 and 1572 are said to have made 
him indebted for 2,400,000 florins. He warns John 
to have his castle of Dillenburg securely guarded 
night and day, ^^ in these terrible times of villany; " 
he cannot come there with safety himself, as his 
unpaid Rittmeisters [captains of horse] might seize 
him, or the Duke of Alva might have him poisoned. 
But now, out of the depth of affliction, there arose 
the first sign of the unnoticed, unexpected force 
which was ultimately to transform the whole struggle 
and to decide the issue. It came as a little cloud out 
of the sea, like a man's hand. This was the first 
naval success of the '^ Beggars of the Sea.'' For 
some time past the Huguenots had issued letters of 
marque to privateer ships from the west coast of 
France. Coligny had seen the great possibilities 
which this opened to the Protestant cause ; the result 



154 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

showed the importance during half a century to come 
attributed to the poii: of La Rochelle. Fresh from 
the bloody field of Jemmingen, Louis of l^assau wrote 
(July 1568) that ''they were resolved to harass the 
enemy by sea ; " and Coligny and Louis seem to have 
induced the Prince in the following year to issue com- 
missions to various officers by sea. A brother of 
Brederode, an Egmont and others, served on ship- 
board; and a de Berghes, Lord of Dolhain, was 
named as Admiral of the Fleet. 

These commissions purported to be issued by the 
Prince as a sovereign waging lawful war ; and, in the 
double-dealing way characteristic of Elizabeth, they 
were from time to time recognised or repudiated in 
English ports. These irregular fleets, with ships pro- 
cured in England, Holland, or Germany, were 
manned by mixed crews of refugees and desperadoes, 
French, Walloon, Dutch, or German, who soon car- 
ried on what was little less than miscellaneous piracy. 
Dolhain, in September 1569, had under his command 
some 18 ships with 3000 men, and in a few months 
he had captured 300 vessels, some of them with a 
treasure of 30,000 thalers.* The excesses, atroci- 
ties, indiscipline of these wild corsairs were a sore 
trial to the conservative, prudent, systematic temper 
of the Prince. 

* The German thaler was worth about 71^ cents. 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 155 

Erom his retreat at Arnstadt William endeavored 
to restrain these excesses and control his sea-rovers. 
He denounced their '^ drunkenness and disorder," re- 
called Dolhain, and appointed de Lumbres his admi- 
ral (August 1570). He now seriously reorganized 
the marine forces, drafted a scheme for their opera- 
tions, and named as harbors of refuge Rotterdam, 
the Zuider Zee, or Brill. He orders that they shall 
attack none but such as serve the Spaniard, and care- 
fully abstain from molesting neutrals, or even 
Philip's destined wife. A minister was to serve on 
each ship, who was to preach the Word morning and 
evening ; no foreigner could command a ship ; no bad 
character should be enrolled ; and all violence, mu- 
tiny, and misconduct was to be strictly punished. It 
is difficult to see how the Prince could expect to en- 
force these rules from the fastnesses of Nassau: as 
a fact, they were a dead letter ; and the excesses of 
these '^ Sea-Beggars '' were the terror of the coast. 
One of the most desperate was William de Lumey, a 
count of La Marck, a descendant and imitator of the 
famous Wild Board of Ardennes."^ He wore the Beg- 
gars' costume, and had sworn not to cut his beard till 
he had avenged Count Egmont's death. Crews of 

* The infamous Count of La Marck, whose ferocity won for 
him the nickname the Wild Boar of Ardennes, figures in 
Scott^^'s Quentin Durward. De Lumey, better known as Van 
Der Marck, seenis to hS'Ve inherited his ancestor'^ depravity. 



156 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

refugees and outlaws of various races, led by men like 
de Lumej, scoured the Ketherland coasts and estu- 
aries, pillaging, burning, and slaying all whom they 
chose to treat as Catholic enemies. Priests and monks 
they put to death with horrible tortures; magistrates 
and officials of the Government they held to high 
ransom. Their audacity, their exactions, their out- 
rages, increased day by day. They attacked the navy 
from Spain, and seized the treasure. Alva himself, 
we are told, dared not risk the voyage back to Spain. 
Under the organising genius of the ISTassaus, these 
marine expeditions began to assume a far more serious 
form. They were now acting with the Huguenots of 
France. Louis, in La Rochelle, was raising a .large 
force to land at Brill, to co-operate with a simultane- 
ous invasion of Hainault by William. Elizabeth, 
still determined not to bring on a war with Spain, 
had so far yielded to their entreaties for aid, that she 
allowed the Sea Beggars to use her ports, and to re- 
cruit for Orange in her realm. '^ They are going too 
far, I admit to you in private," said Burleigh, " in 
favoring the corsairs ; but you may avow it has no 
sanction from the Queen." Alva now took vigorous 
measures, and forced Elizabeth to disclaim these 
underhand doings, and to issue a proclamation against 
helping the rovers. Her act had a startling result ua- 
looked for by herself, by Alva, or by Orange, 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 157 

A fleet of some twenty-five ships of the Sea Beg- 
gars under de Lumej and Treslong, being suddenly 
driven from the English coast and denied supplies, 
cruised off the shores of I^orth Holland, in search of 
provisions and plunder. Contrary winds drove them 
into the mouth of the Meuse before Brill (1st April 
1572). The terrified burghers, who were told that 
the fleet carried 5000 men, first parleyed and then 
fled. The Beggars stormed the gates, captured the 
town, cut the dykes round it, and, though but a few 
hundred strong, fortified themselves with cannon on 
the walls, proclaiming the Prince of Orange as lawful 
Stadtholder. They sacked the churches and monas- 
teries, arrayed themselves in the priests' vestments, 
drank out of the golden chalices from the altars. 
They murdered and tortured the monks and priests, 
and then issued an address to the towns of Zeeland, 
that they were come not to harm the people, but to de- 
stroy priests, monks, papists, and idolatry. Refugees 
poured in from England and elsewhere ; a force sent 
by Alva was beaten off, but took a cruel vengeance on 
Rotterdam,'^ which declared for Orange. 

* It was Bossu who led the expedition to Rotterdam. Ar- 
riving before the city, he found the gates closed ; demanding 
admission, he was refused. He then " resorted to a perfidious 
stratagem. He requested permission for his troops to pass 
through the city without halting. This was granted by the 
magistrates on condition that only a corporal's command 
should be admitted at a time, To these t^i'ms the count 



158 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Neither William nor Louis at first approved of this 
wild raid by a handful of rovers. They were organ- 
ising a combination on a large scale of Huguenots 
and Hollanders, with concerted action by sea and 
land. They were not yet ready ; and they were not 
pleased by a lawless and ' premature coup de main, 
which they would hardly believe could be followed by 
any result. But the instinct of the people of Holland 
flamed up at this daring stroke. Mad as they were 
with rage and despair, this foothold in the sea-swamps 
of Voorn seemed to them a plank to seize in the ship- 
wreck. An electric shock of hope ran through Zee- 
land and Holland. They shouted the rhyme, 
" On April-Fool's Day, Duke Alva's specs' [Bril] 
were snatched away ! " Caricatures were published 
showing this in the act, with the Duke exclaiming, no 

affixed his hand and seal. With the admission, however, of 
the first detacliment, a violent onset was made upon the gate 
by the whole Spanish force. The townspeople, not suspecting 
treachery, were not prepared to make effective resistance. 
A stout smith, confronting the invaders at the gate, almost 
singly, with his sledge-hammer, was stabbed to the heart by 
Bossu with his own hand. The soldiers, having thus gained 
admittance, rushed through the streets, putting every man 
to death who offered the sliglitest resistance. Within a few 
minutes four hundred citizens were murdered. The fate of 
the women, abandoned now to the outrage of a brutal sol- 
diery, was worse than death. The capture of Rotterdam is 
infamous for the same crimes which blacken the record of 
every Spanish triumph in the Netherlands," — Motlejr, The 
Rise of the Dutch Republic, ii., 3S8, 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 159 

es nada (" it is naught "). This explosion of popular 
fury, opening a vast revolution in modern history, by 
what was in itself an unpremeditated and trivial in- 
cident, like the storming of the Bastille in 1789, 
really laid the foundation of the Free ]!^etherlands. 
On 1st April 1572 the Dutch Republic began to rise 
out of the sea. 

]^either the Nassaus, nor Alva, wholly unfamiliar 
as they all were with maritime war and ^' the sea- 
power," had for the moment seized the vast impor- 
tance of this casual stroke. But they all soon learned 
that it must be promptly treated. Louis, then at 
Blois conferring with the French princes and king, 
keen partisan chief as he was, immediately sent off 
his secretary to try if Flushing also could be seized. 
Treslong and his Beggar seamen, Alva and his 
engineers, all understood the crucial importance of 
Flushing, w^hich the military genius of Louis had per- 
ceived from the Loire. Flushing, on the island of 
Walcheren, commanded the estuary of the Scheldt; 
it was the key of all Zeeland, and the gate of Antwerp, 
whence the importance of this point of vantage from 
that day to ours. The Duke was well informed of 
its importance, and had already commenced a citadel 
there on the model of that which Paciotto, his Italian 
engineer, was constructing at Antwerp. But Alva, 
who at first had treated the Sea Beggars as nada^ was 



160 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

too late, and made a fatal blunder. The citizens rose 
in revolt, sent for aid to Brill, from which Treslong 
dashed down to their help.* Beggars and refugees 
flocked to the standard of Orange; they drove off 
the Spaniards, and became masters of the whole isle 
of Walcheren, excepting Middelburg. Paciotto was 
caught and hung, the Spanish prisoners were slaugh- 
tered, and the patriots, or rovers, raided far and wide, 
sacking convents and churches, and even threaten- 
ing the mainland round Ghent. Within ten days the 
Beggars were masters of Delfshaven and Schiedam 
near Rotterdam, where a movement took place; and 
before long all the important towns of Holland, 
Friesland, Guelderland, and Utrecht, joined the 
Prince. 

He now fully understood the vast possibilities that 
accident and audacity had flung into his arms, and he 
seized the occasion with passionate energy. Pour- 
teen days after the seizure of Brill, he addressed 

* " This expedition seemed a fierce but whimsical mas- 
querade. Ever\^ man in the little fleet M'as attired in the 
.e^orgeous garments of the plundered churches — in cassocks of 
varied hue, glittering vestments, or the more sombre cowls 
and robes of Capuchin friars. So sped tlie early standard- 
bearers of that ferocious liberty wliich had sprung from the 
fires in which all else for which men clierish their fatherland 
had been consumed. So swept that resolute but fantastic 
band along the placid estuaries of Zeeland, waking the 
stagnant waters with their wild beggar songs and cries of 
vengeance." — Motley, Tlie Rise of the Dutch Republic, ii., 360. 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 161 

from Dillenburg, a stirring proclamation to all 
states, magistrates, burghers, and citizens of the Neth- 
erlands. He called on them as Stadtholder of His 
Majesty for Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, and 
Utrecht, to win freedom and redemption from the 
slavery they endured at the hands of ti^e cruel, for- 
eign, bloodthirsty oppressors \_slavernye der wreder, 
utlandigher , hloet-dorstigher^ verdruckers^. He re- 
hearsed the horrors of the Inquisition, the monstrous 
taxation, and the suppression of free conscience and 
the Word of God. He vowed to help them with 
might and main, not renouncing their allegiance to 
the King, but asserting the ancient rights and privi- 
leges of these Provinces. 

He sent off separate appeals to the burghers and 
magistrates of Middelburg, Gouda, Enkhuisen, and 
other towns to act with spirit. These were stirring 
incentives to patriotic effort, to throw off the Span- 
ish yoke, to save their wives and children from the 
tyrant by the help of Almighty God, and not to 
forget that it is impossible for him to bring troops to 
their aid, unless he is enabled to pay and supply them. 
He was still in Germany, concerting with his brothers 
and the French Huguenots a combined attack on Alva 
from the Rhine and the Meuse. He could not fore- 
see how utterly all these armies on land were destined 
to fail. ]^or could he quite foresee all that was 



1G2 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

destined to be achieved by the scanty fleets on the sea- 
board. The islands of Voorn and Walcheren to- 
gether commanded the estuaries of the Rhine, the 
Waal, the Mouse, and the Scheldt. " Flushing will 
become another La Rochelle in the hands of the 
rebels," wrote one of his ablest captains to Alva. In 
truth, Zeeland became the pou sto whence the Holland 
mariners were to find sea-captains whom Alva could 
not match, and squadrons which his veterans could 
not reach, where refugees and comrades could join 
them from England and from the coast of France, 
whence invincible fleets were to issue tc drain the 
very life-blood of Spain, and ultimately to snatch 
from them their Indian Empire. 

When the Prince, after the disasters of 1569, with- 
drew from France to Germany, Louis of Nassau re- 
mained as the right arm of Coligny, his chivalry, 
energy, and personal fascination making him a lead- 
ing spirit in the Huguenot cause, ^ow occurred one 
of those perpetual changes of front characteristic of 
this age of Machiavellian intrigue, balance, and coun- 
terpoise. Seeing the Huguenots prostrate before the 
Catholics, it occurred to the wily Catherine and the 
imbecile Charles IX. that the time had come to re- 
habilitate the losing side. The indomitable Coligny 
and the ardent Louis of l^assau seized the opportu- 
nity, and for some two years they seemed to control 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 163 

the eouncils of France. Bj the peace o. St. Germain 
(August 1570) the Protestants were recognised as 
capable of all public offices ; four important places 
were put into their charge ; the two Xassaus were de- 
clared the King's *^ good kinsmen and friends," and 
the principality of Orange was restored to the Prince, 
who, said rumor, was now to transfer his allegiance 
to France. By a secret article Charles agreed to give 
two millions for arrears of pay to the German auxilia- 
ries. Louis took charge of the rovers from La 
Rochelle, and held constant interviews with the 
French king and his advisers. 

Coligny and Louis now urged on France the bold 
and tempting policy of humbling Spain, and driv- 
ing her from the Netherlands. It was a real danger 
for Philip ; but here again, in this age of counter- 
poise, it awoke the jealousy of Elizabeth and the Ger- 
man chiefs. Louis won over Walsingham, if not 
Burleigh, but the imperturbable wariness of the 
Queen gave him a final rebuff. Louis found the feck- 
less Charles more amenable, and the French king 
actually entered into personal engagements to help 
the Nassaus. The falsehoods, so freely poured forth 
by Catherine, her sons and her creatures, did not 
deceive the sagacious envoys of Spain, who knew that, 
so far as words could go, the crown of France was 
pledged to the cause of Orange. They had gone so far 



164: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

as to open a map and thereon to reapportion the whole 
of the ISTetherlands between the French, the English, 
and the Hassans. There is no evidence that William, 
any more than Elizabeth, ever seriously committed 
himself to this policy ; the reckless Louis as usual 
used his brother's name in a dozen different intrigues. 
But Philip's agents at last reported that a combined 
set of attacks were to be made on Alva from different 
quarters : one by Orange, another by Louis, and a 
third by Coligny, the King of France secretly giving 
his support. It was a real policy, even a great policy, 
if honestly treated — the policy indeed of Llenri IV. 
and of Richelieu — but it was premature, and impos- 
sible of execution, because in that age every politician 
distrusted every other politician, with abundant 
cause ; and no politician, except William and Philip, 
could be trusted to maintain any definite policy for 
two months together. Confidential letters and en- 
voys now passed constantly between the Prince and 
the French king ; but we know nothing of the details 
agreed. 

The position of Alva had now become almost crit- 
ical. He had instituted a novel system of taxation, 
which aroused the fiercest hostility in the N^ether- 
landers, who had the ancient right of taxing them- 
selves. One per cent on all property, fixed or move- 
able, 5 per cent on every transfer of fixed property, 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 165 

and 10 'per cent on every sale of goods, were new and 
crushing impositions. The last tax, known as the 
Tenth Penny, drove the good burghers to fury. It 
was the very delirium of tyranny which could dream 
of exacting from the richest traders in Europe 10 
per cent on every transaction. The opposition was 
so general and fierce that even Alva was forced to 
compromise, and at last agreed to accept two millions 
of florins annually for the two years ending August 
15T1. At that date he again began to insist on his 
Tenth Penny. But now even Philip's creatures cried 
out against it. His ambassador from Paris wrote 
that the Duke was ruining the country by desta negra 
decima; the land was being depopulated; there was 
but one cry, vaya, vaya, vaya, the Duke must go. The 
cardinal's confidants told him that Brill was lost 
" owing to that Tenth Penny." To smooth his way, 
Alva published a pardon, which was simply laughed 
at ; but he stuck to his tax ; and, as trade had ceased — 
'' the bakers refused to bake, the brewers to brew, the 
tapsters to draw " — the Spanish financier ordered 
eighteen traders to be hung at their own shop doors, to 
encourage the rest to do business and save his Budget. 
But the tyrant felt that he was failing. He was 
racked with gout; he implores Philip to send him a 
successor; he would be cut in pieces rather than re- 
sign, if he thought lie could still serve the King ; but 



166 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

the obstinate impatience of taxation shown by the 
Flemings was such that he is not duly supported — 
" owing to the hatred the people bear him, in conse- 
quence of the chastisement he found it necessary to 
inflict, with all the moderation in the world [por el 
castigo que en ellos ha sido necesario hacer, aunque 
con toda la moderacion del mundo']^ This letter of 
26th April 1572 is a psychological document. The 
Duke honestly relates the loss of Flushing and the 
difficulties of the Spaniards, the want of money, the 
universal hatred, the paralysis of the Spanish veterans 
whom he dared not to move, the need of a successor 
less odious than himself, — the Duke still proudly 
conscious that he has served his God and his King 
with devotion and with clemency. Philip doggedly 
stuck to his Viceroy and his Tenth Penny ; refused to 
let Alva go ; but he secretly consented to some modera- 
tion, and he sent Medina-Coeli to assist, to watch, and 
ultimately to supersede the Duke. 

And now Louis of Nassau struck his stroke, not less 
daring than that of Brill, but destined to have no such 
result. Dashing suddenly out of France into Hain- 
ault, with a small army, raised by Charles's money, 
he seized Valenciennes, took Mons by stratagem, and 
fortified himself there (23d May). At the same time 
the Sea Beggars at Flushing seized a valuable Span- 
ish fleet with an immense treasure on board, and 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 167 

nearly captured Medina-Coeli himself. It was be- 
lieved that the towns of Brabant and even Brussels 
were threatened. But neither William nor Coligny 
Avere yet ready to support the impetuous Louis, who 
was not very well received at Mons and was uuable to 
advance. Alva hurried down a strong force to block- 
ade Mons under his natural son, the gallant captain 
Don Frederic ; and, as a still speedier device, he sent 
in two hired spies to poison the Count in his house. 
Violent struggles were going on in the councils of 
France ; and, in spite of the power of Coligny, who 
was now called " the King of Paris," the Court hesi- 
tated to make open war on Philip's Viceroy. 

But William was now ready. For two years he 
had been working incessantly to raise an invading 
army and to organise an internal rising in Holland. 
The latter prospered far more speedily than the 
former, which needed funds. He had now something 
like a complete provisional system of leaders and 
agents awaiting his signal to rise. Troops could not 
be had without money. But of late large sums had 
been rolling in from English Protestants, from 
France, and elsewhere. Since the peace of St. Ger- 
main, subsidies had secretly arrived from France, and 
recently a sum of 200,000 crowns had been sent by 
Charles himself. The sea-rovers had captured treas- 
ure ships, and the refugee congregations in England 



168 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

and France had sent contributions in response to the 
Prince's appeal. The seizure of Brill and Flushing 
had given the fund a new life ; and large resources 
were now coming in to the Prince, just as the Duke's 
Tenth Penny and his gigantic fortresses had drained 
his exchequer dry. George Certain (William) and 
Lambert Certain (Louis) were doing a roaring trade, 
and their cypher correspondence of merchant ventures 
began to show a promising balance. 

At the end of June 1572 the Prince left Dillenburg 
at the head of 1000 horsemen. The next month he 
crossed the Rhine north of Dusseldorf with a consid- 
erable force. At his summons as Stadtholder, the rep- 
resentatives of eight Dutch towns assembled at Dort, 
where Philip de Marnix, Ste. Aldegonde, addressed 
them in a fervid speech in the name of the Prince. 
The congress responded to this appeal by proclaiming 
the Prince as their lawful Stadtholder under the 
King, and they voted supplies for three months. De 
la Marck was appointed Admiral, and a regular gov- 
ernment instituted. By the middle of July, William 
had an army of 20,000 horse and foot : with them he 
crossed the Meuse and took Poermond,* which his 

* At Roermond the troops of William ''already began to 
disgrace the honorable cause in which they were engaged, by 
imitating the cruelties and barbarities of their antagonists. 
The persons and property of the burghers were, with a very 
few exceptions, respected ; but many priests and monks wer§ 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 169 

people savagely sacked, murdering the priests. 
Coligny was promising him to lead in person power- 
ful supports ; and the vanguard of these, 5000 strong, 
had already advanced towards Mons when they were 
cut to pieces by the Spaniards. In the meantime 
nearly all Holland had declared for the Prince. Alva 
told the King that only two towns there, they having 
a Spanish garrison, could be trusted. On the 21st of 
August the Duke writes to Philip a long despatch on 
the difficulties of his position ; his army cannot yet be 
mustered to take Mons, on which so much hangs: 



put to death by the soldiery under circumstances of great 
barbarity. The prince, incensed at such conduct, but being 
unable to exercise very stringent authority over troops whose 
wages he was not yet able to pay in full, issued a proclama- 
tion, denouncing such excesses, and commanding his fol- 
lowers, upon pain of death, to respect the rights of all indi- 
viduals, wli ether papist or protestant, and to protect religious 
exercises both in Catholic and Reformed churches. 

" It is hardly to be expected that the troops enlisted by the 
prince in the same great magazine of hireling soldiers, Ger- 
many, from whence the duke also derived his annual supplies, 
would be likely to differ very much in their propensities from 
those enrolled under Spanish banners ; yet there was a vast 
contrast between the characters of the two commanders. 
One leader inculcated the practice of robbery, rape, and mur- 
der, as a duty, and issued distinct orders to butcher *' every 
mother's son " in the cities which he captured ; the other re- 
strained every excess to the utmost of his ability, protecting 
not only life and property, but even the ancient religion." — 
Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, ii., 385. 



170 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

both in Flanders, Brabant, and Holland, the revolt is 
raging and successful. 

The hopes of William rose high. On 11th August 
he wrote to John — "^ We may see how miraculously 
God defends our people, and makes us hope that, in 
spite of the malice of our enemies. He will bring our 
cause to a good and happy end, to the advancement of 
His glory and the deliverance of so many Christians 
from unjust oppression." He continues to enlarge on 
his desperate want of more funds ; but on the other 
hand he has just heard from Coligny that he is about 
to join him with 12,000 arquebusiers and 3000 horse, 
and the Admiral implores the Prince not to engage 
the enemy until their forces were united. This letter 
is still dated from the camp round Roermond, 100 
miles from Mons, where Louis is closely beleaguered ; 
and, in spite of the advice of Coligny, of the want 
of money, of the need of combination, it is difficult to 
see why the Prince should not have dashed forward to 
Mons and Louis, instead of occupying himself with 
despatching ten pages of narrative and brotherly con- 
fidences to John at Dillenburg. Both in his own age 
and in ours his deliberate strategy has been bitterly 
condemned. 

Coligny never came. His mangled corpse was 
being dragged about the streets of Paris in the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew, 24th August, 1572. That 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 171 

terrific thunderbolt out of the blue dashed to the 
ground the rising fortunes of the Prince and of his 
fatherland. The intrigue which cut down the heads 
of the Huguenots belongs to the history of France and 
of Europe; to the Xetherlands it came as a crushing 
blow which for years set back their chance of deliver- 
ance. For all the ascendency of Coligny at court and 
the gallantTj of his followers, France definitely re- 
jected the Calvinist Keform ; the Catholic chiefs were 
as resolute, as ambitious, as willing to fight it otit, as 
the Huguenot chiefs ; they had a great popular major- 
ity to support them, and were bent on even more 
desperate ventures. The struggle had long been a 
rivalry between the Papal and the Calvinist aristo- 
crats to get control over the royalty of France — ^the 
Court meanwhile, with a perfidy and treachery that 
have never been surpassed, intriguing with each in 
turn to keep itself free from the gTasp of either. The 
ascendency over Charles of Coligny, a man with an 
iron will and a great policy, in result only forced 
Catherine and Anjou into the arms of the Catholics, 
to share the blood feud of the Guises. Where mur- 
derous hatreds and furious ambitions had kept a 
warlike nobilitv for vears at fever-heat, a sudden out- 
burst of passion was enough to fire the entire arsenal 
of fanaticism and hate. Intrigue followed intrigue ; 
fresh reprisals followed each murder ; then came the 



172 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Red Wedding of Henry of ^N^avarre,* the mutilation 
of Coligny; Huguenot plots — Catholic plots — mid- 
night murders — a popular frenzy — and torrents of 
blood through the streets of Paris and the cities of 
France. The Huguenots lost for ever their last real 
chance of being masters of France. 

The Prince felt all the consequences of this execra- 
ble meurtre.'f In a cypher letter to John he writes: 
Quel coup de massue, cela nous ait este, n'est besoin 
de vous discourir." J " Our hope of human aid was 



* Henry of Navarre, at that time a leader of the Huguenots, 
married Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX., an earnest 
Catholic, at Paris, August 18, 1872. Though Henry's mother, 
the Queen of Navarre, had died but ten days previous— not 
without accusations of poisoning — the wedding festivities 
were conducted with great magnificence. "The King of Na- 
varre and his troop," wrote Margaret, "having changed their 
mourning for very rich and fine clothes, and I being dressed 
royally, with crown and corset of tufted ermine, all blazing 
with crown jewels, and the grand blue mantle with a train 
four ells long borne by three princesses, the people choking 
one another down below to see us pass." When the Princess 
Margaret was asked if she consented, she hesitated, but King 
Charles IX. put his hand on her head and made her lower it 
in token of assent. 

On the 24th day of that same month, six days after the 
wedding, and while the festivities were still at their height, 
occurred the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

* " Execrable massacre." 

f " Such a blow of the club as we have had there is no need 
to describe." 



BRILL-ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 173 

in France. By all earthly calculations we should have 
been to-day masters of Alva, and had him at our 
mercy. It cannot be told how this has ruined and 
thrown me back, for I trusted to the 12,000 arque- 
busiers that the Admiral promised me.'' He pressed 
on, urging John to procure him some fresh arquebus 
men from France. A month after taking Roermond 
at the junction of the Meuse and the Roer in Lim- 
burg, the Prince advanced towards Antwerp and 
Brussels, taking many towns on his way, his German 
troops scouring the country with horrible excesses, 
pillaging and destroying freely, and advancing within 
a league of Brussels, which, with Louvain, shut its 
gates upon his force. Here he received positive news 
of the massacre of August ; and as the French king's 
messenger reports : ^^ II s'est merveilleusement trouvc 
estonne et en extreme fascherie, en sorte que sur ce il 
commenga a entrer en grande crainte et defiance de 
Vostre part et de n'avoir plus le bon succes en ses 
affaires qu'il attendait." "^ 

Heartbroken he struggled on. He got possession of 
Malines, half-way between Antwerp and Brussels, of 
Termonde, between Brussels and Ghent, and of 

* " He was amazingly astonished and extremely vexed, so 
that he begins to be in great fear and suspicion of your part 
and no longer to have the success in his affairs that he ex- 
pected." 



174 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Oudenarde, between Ghent and Lille. Both Ghent 
and Bruges expected an attack. Early in September 
he was close to Mons, where he had been for three 
months eagerly expected by Louis and his men, with 
prayers, entreaties, and even reproaches. He now 
seemed to be on the top of a wave of success. A 
girdle of towns round Brussels, from the Scheldt to 
the Meuse, was in his hands. His armj was now 
larger than any the Spaniards could bring into the 
field. Had he been a great master of war at the head 
of disciplined patriots, even now he would have joined 
Louis, crushed Alva, and roused all the Netherlands 
in arms. But he was not a great master of war, and 
he led, not patriots, but a motlej^ host of foreign mer- 
cenaries, greedy, lawless, and ferocious. They 
claimed the right to recoup their arrears by plunder ; 
they murdered, burnt, and pillaged; and the country 
people, scared by their excesses, and panic-struck by 
Alva, gave no real support. William advanced with 
caution and by slow stages, hardly master of his own 
disorderly army. The Duke knew that his rival's 
force was formidable, " with some 6000 good cav- 
alry." One of the acutest observers wrote: " If the 
Prince acted with spirit he would crush Alva ; if 
Alva acted with spirit, he would crush the Prince." 
This was true. Both were masters of Fabian tactics ; 
but the Fabian tactics which served the Duke were the 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 175 

ruin of tlie Prince. William led a loosely organised 
crowd of free lances. Alva commanded unconquered 
veterans, led by consummate soldiers. 

The Duke was now at the head of his army at 
Mons, having deliberately drained Brussels itself of 
his Spanish garrison. His position,, he well knew, 
was critical ; but he still speaks with proud confidence 
in his despatches to Philip. And well might the 
commander of such soldiers feel confident. On the 
night of the 11th September Julian de Romero led a 
night surprise, or camisada, into the camp of the 
Prince. Six hundred arquebusiers, with their white 
shirts over their armor, mounted behind as many 
troopers, dashed into the enemies' lines, cut down the 
sentinels, butchered the men asleep, and for two hours 
spread confusion in the camp, which they fired, and 
returned with a loss of only sixteen men. Romero 
himself made straight for the Prince's headquarters, 
and nearly cut him off. William was asleep ; but, as 
his habit was, in his clothes, with arms by his side and 
his horse saddled. His favorite lap-dog, who lay on 
his couch, roused his master and saved his life ; and 
thus he lies beneath him to this day in bronze on the 
Prince's monument and statues in Delft and at the 
Hague. 

After this serious blow, which disorganised his 
army even more than it reduced it, William beat a 



176 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

hasty retreat. He was without provisions, his 
troopers mutinied and refused to act, he was sur- 
rounded, and with the wreck of his force sought to 
make his way back into Holland. In the retreat he 
was nearly killed by his mutinous mercenaries, who 
talked of surrendering him to Alva ; whilst an assas- 
sin, hired by Alva, penetrated to his quarters and 
dogged his steps. The incident of the midnight sur- 
prise is not one that deserves to be commemorated in 
bronze. Maledictions and insults follow^ed the beaten 
general in his retreat : ^^ Pcrde il credito/' * wrote 
the Venetian envoy ; '' Fort desrompu et triste" \ 
wrote the envoy of Charles. Again a great combina- 
tion, organised after years of negotiation, had sud- 
denly collapsed, and a powerful army, collected with 
incredible labor, had penetrated to the walls of Brus- 
sels, only to disband itself in ignominious rout. 

To the ardent soul of Louis of !N^assau, shut up in 
Mons, the massacre of the Huguenot chiefs struck a 
death-chill. '' His sorrow was so bitter that he was 
ill for three months." Within a few days after the 
retreat of William, Louis was forced to capitulate. 
He obtained from Alva unexpectedly favorable terms, 
which, even yet more unexpectedly, Alva punctili- 
ously observed. The French king, whose envoy was 

* " His credit is destroyed." 

f " Decidedly demoralized and sad." 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 177 

ordered " to keep on amicable terms witli Orange and 
with Alva, encouraging both," pressed the Duke to 
refuse quarter and massacre his prisoners. Alva, who 
is said to have denounced the St. Bartholomew crime, 
and who wished for the moment to exhibit his clem- 
ency as a contrast, suffered Louis with his German 
troops to evacuate the fortress with their arms, and 
gave them an ample escort to join the Prince, treating 
them with the high-bred courtesy of a Spanish hidal- 
go. Such was the fantastic point of military honor as 
understood by the Viceroy of Philip. The man who 
habitually employed assassins w^ould not be himself 
an assassin. He stuck at nothing to murder the 
Prince, but '^ he would cut off his right hand " rather 
than butcher Coligny fresh from a friendly embrace. 
The monster who sent innocent thousands month by 
month to the rack, the scaffold, and the stake was 
himself the mirror of chivalry in presence of the noble 
foeman whom he had beaten in fight. 

Louis, prostrate with fever, and fainting by the 
way, was honorably escorted in a litter to Roermond, 
where rumor had it he was dead. Thence by slow 
stages and in many dangers he made his journey home 
to Dillenburg, and his mother nursed him back into 
life. His Huguenot followers returned to France, and 
the French king took care to have them quietly butch- 
ered at the frontier. Charles was now quite eager to 
12 



178 WILLI AxM THE SILENT. 

show Philip and Alva that he was a good Catholic, 
and had no desire for a war with Spain. He knew 
that Alva's officers had captured his letters to Louis, 
wherein the King of France freely promised the 
E^assaus money and men. To the mind of a Valois it 
was but natural that, being found out, he should now 
turn against the men with whom he had intrigued. 

The Prince of Orange was utterly crushed, but even 
now would not give way to despair. His men would 
neither fight nor obey. They were encumbered with 
wagon loads of booty; and the panic-stricken towns 
fell off, one after the other. Again he implores John 
to make fresh efforts with the German princes in this 
crisis, " seeing that the massacre of Protestants 
touches them more closely than they think.'' E"ext, 
as the French Crown had swerved round to the 
enemy again, he turns to Elizabeth, sends her an 
envoy to press on her the vast change in affairs that 
the massacre disclosed. ^^ I am resolved," he writes 
to John in September, '^ to go and plant myself in 
Holland or in Zeeland, and there await the issue 
which it shall please Him to ordain." And again in 
October he writes : '" I am bent on going to Holland 
and Zeeland to maintain the cause there, so far as 
this may be possible — ayant delihere de faire illecq 
ma sepulture." * His instinct was right. The South- 
* '* Having decided to be buried there." 



BRILL— ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 1Y9 

ern Provinces, that we now call Belgium, were not 
to be saved for a Commonwealth and for Calvinism ; 
the I^orthern, that we call Holland, were destined in 
the course of time to grow into the rich, artistic, vic- 
torious, and aspiring Dutch Republic. Holland and 
Zeeland, with their sea-board and intricate water- 
ways, in perpetual contact with England and the high 
seas, were the nucleus out of which the Dutch Re- 
public was finally destined to emerge. And so to this 
day the ancient Church of St. Ursula in the Groote 
Markt of Delft enshrines in serene silence the sepul- 
chre of William of Orange. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE DEATH GRAPPLE NEGOTIATIONS ABANDON- 
MENT. 

1572-1574. 

From henceforth William of Orange was settled 
in Holland, and he clung to it whilst life remained. 
After the dehandade [disbanding] of his mutinous 
army, amidst constant perils from traitors and assas- 
sins, he passed the Rhine, and pressing northwards 
with a few followers, he tried to strengthen the de- 
fences of Zutphen, Kampen, and other places. 
" Alone and abandoned on every side," he writes to 
John, he crossed the Zuider Zee ; and, having reor- 
ganised the Government at Haarlem and at Ley den, 
he fixed his residence at Delft, which became his per- 
manent home. 

Now begins that series of terrific struggles in the 
Dutch towns and their heroic defence, whereby, in 
spite of defeat, massacre, and horrible sufferings, 
they wore down the armies of Spain ; and ultimately, 
by endurance of agony rather than by military suc- 

180 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 181 

cesSj achieved the independence of the ISTorthern 
Provinces. 

On entering Mons, after the retreat of Count Louis 
..nd his soldiers, Alva exacted a bloody vengeance on 
the citizens, which was prolonged till the time of his 
successor. He then proceeded to sack Mechlin, which 
ill-fated town was delivered over to butchery, torture, 
rape, and indiscriminate plunder, till every article of 
value, sacred or profane, had been rifled by the in- 
furiated soldiery, thirsting to recoup themselves their 
arrears of pay. Philip was informed by one of his 
agents that they had not left un clou aux murailles,^ 
and had, tortured wives, maidens, and boys to force 
them to reveal concealed money. Alva assured Philip 
that this chastisement was the manifest purpose of 
God, but they had not had chastisement enough. He 
passed on with his valiant son, Don Frederic, to the 
IRorthern Provinces. Dripping with blood, and laden 
with spoil, his soldiers stormed Zutphen, where the 
same scenes of horror were repeated. The Duke re- 
ports to Philip that he had ordered his son '^ not to 
leave a man alive, and to set fire to the city in various 
places." This, he adds, had been done, and promises 
a most blessed result. 

When butchery and rape were exhausted, Don 
Frederic passed on to !N"aarden, a little town on the 
* " A nail in the walls." 



182 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Zuider Zee, near Amsterdam. The massacres at 
Naarden were even more horrible and more systema- 
tic than at Zutphen. The population was extermi- 
nated and the city burnt to the ground, which even 
the Jesuit historian calls '^ not a punishment, but a 
crime." Alva duly reported this work to the King, 
who congratulated the Duke on exacting so well- 
deserved a vengeance, and Don Frederic as being so 
truly the son of his father.* Alva, it must be re- 
membered, was always straightforward, frank, and 
perfectly conscientious in his own sense of duty to 
his King and his God. He conceals nothing, palliates 
nothing; he neither denies his failures nor exagger- 
ates his success ; his record of massacre and tyranny 
is all signed with his own hand. 

The bloody progress of Alva from Hainault to the 
Zuider Zee had crushed out all sign of opjposition, 
and he proudly reports to the King the places which 
he had subdued and occupied. He then fixed himself 
in Amsterdam, resolved to stamp out resistance in the 
only corner where it remained — the narrow sea- 
board of Holland and Zeeland, which lay behind its 
vast dykes, half-sunk beneath its salt marshes, from 

* This monumental phrase of Alva's in a report to the King 
(19th December 1572) deserves to be recorded in the original 
— Degollaron hurgeses y soldados, sin escaparse homhre nascido 
(*' They slaughtered citizens and soldiers, without leaving a 
man alive"). 



J 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 183 

Walcheren to the Helder. In this historic strip of 
swamp, little more than 100 miles long, and hardly 
more than 20 in breadth, were enacted those prodigies 
of valor, endurance, invention, and martial energy, 
which ultimately drained Spain and set up the Dutch 
Republic. The heroism and the ferocity were equal 
on both sides ; and if the Spaniards were supreme in 
every art of war, the Dutch were supreme in indomi- 
table endurance. N^early in the centre of this narrow 
strip of dykeland lay Delft, where the Prince had 
planted himself for life and death, and whence 
northwards and southwards he directed the desperate 
defence. 

Unused as were the Spaniards to the sea, to ships, 
to fens, and to ice, they betook themselves to them all 
with marvellous audacity and resource. The exploit 
of Mondragon, who relieved Tergoes [October 20, 
1572] by leading 3000 veterans, at low tide in the 
dead of night, in a march of ten miles through a 
swamp where the water reached their shoulders, was, 
as Alva reported to Philip, one of the most astonish- 
ing feats in the records of war. Again, wdien a fleet 
was frozen up in the Zuider Zee, Don Frederic at- 
tacked it on the ice ; and, when the Hollander arque- 
busiers advanced to the charge on skates, Alva or- 
dered 7000 pairs of skates and taught his men to use 
them in battle. 



184 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Between Amsterdam and the ocean lay the rich 
and noble city of Haarlem, almost surrounded by 
shallow lakes, and connected with its neighbors by 
causeways, which were pierced by an intricate system 
of sluice-gates. Don Frederic opened the siege with 
a magnificent army, said to amount to 30,000 men, 
with whom he at once attempted to storm the city. 
How he was driven back by a furious rally of the 
whole population, how assault after assault was de- 
feated, how his mines were met by counter-mines, 
and the breaches in the wall made by Spanish cannon 
were countered by new walls raised inside, how every 
device of the engineer's art was baffled by the ingenu- 
ity of the defence, how the valor of the Spanish veter- 
ans was kept at bay by the heroism of men, women, 
and children in the town, how a regular corps of 300 
fighting women shared in the hand-to-hand grapple of 
sortie and assault, how the relieving parties sent by 
the Prince to succor the city both by sea and land 
were cut to pieces by the solid investing army, how 
after seven months of terrific sufferings the city was 
starved into surrender, how Alva celebrated its cap- 
ture by a new general massacre, — all this fills some 
of the most thrilling pages of history, but it cannot 
be rehearsed at large in this brief record of the 
Prince's life.* 
* Haarlem surrendered July 12, 1573. The next morning 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 185 

During the seven months of this tremendous siege 
(10th December 1572 to 12th July 1573) William 
was working day and night to save the doomed town. 
He sent in small parties and urgent appeals whilst 
the lines were still open, and then messages by carrier 
pigeons when they were closed. He wrote imploring 
letters to his brothers in Germany to come to the 
rescue with a force, and he organised such relieving 
parties from the north and from the south, by land 
and by water, as he was able to collect. He besought 
aid from England, from France, from Germany, but 
all in vain. Three thousand men whom he sent 
under de la Marck were cut to pieces. Another 2000 
under Batenburg were destroyed. Sonoy's party 
from the E^orth and a flotilla collected on the Haar- 
lem lake were annihilated ; and by the end of May 
the last fleet the Dutch could muster was swept from 
the sea. 

Then a despairing cry arose from the Hollanders 

the butchery commenced. When the executioners were ex- 
hausted by fatigue with their bloody and sickening work, the 
victims were tied together by twos, back to back, and were 
drowned in the Haarlem lake. After twenty-three hundred 
human beings thus perished, murdered in cold blood, in a 
city already depleted by one of the severest sieges known to 
history, " the blasphemous farce of a pardon was enacted." 
Even so all the prominent burghers, fifty-seven in number, 
were excepted from this amnesty and were taken into custody 
where most of them died. 



186 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

to make a last effort. Soldiers there were none; but 
4000 volunteers were enrolled, and the Prince con- 
sented to lead them on this utterly forlorn hope. He 
protested publicly and in his private letters that it 
was a mad venture to lead a few thousand untrained 
burghers against a great Spanish army securely 
intrenched. The citizens and troops insisted that 
his life should not be sacrificed in what they all felt 
to be a hopeless effort. Batenburg, who took the com- 
mand of this devoted band, fell into a Spanish am- 
buscade and was routed and killed. ^' It is the will 
of God," wrote the Prince to Louis, " and we must 
submit ; but I call my God to witness that I have done 
all that in me lay to save the city, utterly desperate 
as I knew the attempt to be." His own officers 
despaired, and said that unless he had some secret 
alliance with a potentate, resistance was hopeless. 
" When I took in hand the defence of these oppressed 
Christians," he said, "I made an alliance with the 
mightiest of all Potentates — the God of Hosts, who 
is able to save us, if He choose." 

Don Frederic had lost 12,000 men during the long 
siege, the garrison had been reduced from 4000 to 
1800, and he had butchered in cold blood more than 
2000 prisoners, but he could still lead 16,000 men, 
gorged with blood and booty, to finish his work by 
destroying Alkmaar. By the end of August he had 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 187 

invested this little city, which stands on the northern 
spit of Holland, some twenty miles north of Haarlem 
and of Amsterdam, between the ocean and the Zuider 
Zee. It was defended by some 2000 men, more than 
half of whom were untrained burghers. Alva duly 
reported to his King his intention on taking Alkmaar 
to leave not a single creature alive (passar todos a 
cuchillo), because his clemency at Haarlem had led 
to no good result. Again he warns Philip not to give 
way to tenderness, and to rest assured that every 
living soul in Alkmaar shall be slaughtered (en 
Alckmaer animo. nascida que no se pase por el 
cuchillo). Don Erederic attempted to carry the 
town by storm as he had tried at Haarlem ; but, after 
four hours' assault by his choicest troops, he was 
driven back, leaving a thousand of his men in the 
trenches. The burghers, who a Spanish officer de- 
clared looked like fishermen, not soldiers, then sent 
forth instructions to cut the dykes and flood the city. 
Secret orders were sent by the Prince, inclosed in a 
rod, to open the sluices and admit the sea. The 
Spanish army found itself begirt by a rising tide. 
Before this new enemy even the valor of Don Fred- 
eric quailed. He hesitated to sacrifice a fine army in 
combat with the ocean ; and after a hot siege of 
seven weeks, Don Frederic led off his drenched and 
diminished forces to join his father in Amsterdam. 



188 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

This memorable repulse, the first retreat of a 
great Spanish army, with the revelation of the new 
power that Holland could call to its aid, the exhaust- 
ing siege of Haarlem, and the still more exhausting 
and disastrous repulse from Leyden, soon to follow, 
— these mark the turning-point of the mighty 
struggle, and begin the long epic of the expulsion of 
Spain from the ^N^orthern Provinces. The whole 
story is told us by Alva himself in his reports. He 
was as obstinate as he was merciless ; no less devoted 
than capable; the frank historian of the heroism of 
his enemies and of his own ferocity. When Don 
Frederic told him that the men of Haarlem did all 
that the best soldiers in the world could do, and asked 
for leave to abandon the siege, the Duke told him 
fiercely that he should hold him no son of his if he 
retired before he w^as dead or victorious. When 
Orange began to cut the dykes round Haarlem, the 
Duke admits that he had never in his life been in so 
great peril, and that if the causeways were flooded he 
should be driven himself to surrender. ''^ Never was 
seen on this earth," he writes, '^ such a war as this. 
!N'ever was a fortress so well defended by men. They 
have an excellent engineer, who has devices that were 
never yet heard or seen (cosas nunca oidas ni vistas). 
The defenders are stronger than the assailants." 

Without pay, without food, without supplies, the 



DEATH GRAPPLE— XEGOTIATIONS. 189 

Spanish troops plundered far and wide. License led 
to mutiny, and desperate plots of treason and revolt. A 
rojal secretary informed Philip that his soldiers, ever 
since their arrival in 1567, had committed murder, 
rape, robbery, and extortion, so that the land was 
being left deserted and trade had disappeared. The 
Catholic prelates joined in an appeal to the King to 
curb '^the furious excesses" of the soldiery. 
^' Xever before," wrote Alva, ^* in all the f ortv years 
of his service had he suffered such grief as by these 
mutinies. He will go to the troops and deliver him- 
self up as a hostage ; and he warns Philip that things 
are as bad as they can be." A second mutiny breaks 
out at Haarlem. His admiral, Bossu, is defeated 
and taken prisoner. The Spanish veterans are in- 
subordinate I Without more money all is lost. The 
sailors as well as the soldiers clamor fiercely for their 
pay. Xever in his life-long service has the Duke 
felt such distress and suffered such pain. 

Ever and ever more piteously the Duke implores 
the King to hasten his successor. He was now, in 
truth, a man broken in health, in credit, and in self- 
confidence. ^* I am a dead man," he wrote, ^' but, 
dead as I am, I can feel the ingratitude of the King 
for all my services." The whole Royalist world 
threw on him all their disasters. ^* This people," 
the secretary wrote home, *^ hate the Spaniards worse 



190 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

than the devil, and foam at the mouth at the very 
name of Alva." The Jesuit Strada long afterwards 
sums up the story thus: '^ Alhani perseveram invi- 
samque Belgls administrationem fuisse belli occa- 
sionem principiumque non ahnuerim," ^ Up to the 
very last, the pitiless fanatic maintained his reign 
of terror. A few days before his resignation he su- 
perintended the most revolting burning of a noble 
prisoner over a slow fire, and he murdered the 
French HugTienot chief, Genlis, secretly in his 
dungeon, giving out that he had died of disease. His 
parting advice to the King and to his successor was 
" to burn down every place in the country not actu- 
ally occupied by the royal troops, even if it were to 
need eight or ten years for the land to recover. It 
was idle to attack the cities one after another; the 
only practical plan was one general destruction." In 
November 1573 the great Assassin resigned office, 
and was succeeded by the Grand Commander Re- 
quesens, having in his six years of power put to 
death, as we are told by the Dutch historians and by 
the Prince himself, 18,000 persons, and accumulated 
round his name a mass of loathing beyond any 
recorded in modern history. 

The retreat and disgrace of Alva mark the point 

* " I do not deny that the origin and cause of the wars with 
the Belgians was the rigid and hateful rule of Alva, 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 191 

in the long struggle at which endurance and con- 
stancy were about to triumph over cruelty and force. 

During all this time the w^eb of intrigue and nego- 
tiation was being unceasingly woven by some of the 
subtlest brains and the most indefatigable workers 
whom history records. The combinations are of in- 
finite variety and rapidity of change, and almost 
every step in the maze of intrigue is now open to us 
in the despatches and memoirs that survive. Vol- 
umes would be needed to unfold in detail the kalei- 
doscopic variations which pass from chancery to 
chancery, from court to court. But although the 
combinations seem to vary from day to day, like the 
surprises of a game of hazard, we can see now that 
the rulers of each country held steadily to a clear and 
intelligible policy of their own, perpetually striving 
to reach it by continually shifting means. 

Spain, France, and England stand forth as the 
three dominant powers — Spain, with far the most 
powerful armies and the highest renown; France, 
with all her vitality and resource, and the advantage 
of her central position ; England, far weaker than 
either by land, but really superior to both on sea. 
Round these three great powers are grouped the 
^etherland Provinces, themselves divided into the 
rich, conservative, Catholic South, and the hardy, 
revolutionary, and Calvinist IN'orth ; Scotland and 



192 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Ireland attached to England by physical bonds, 
which were to a great extent neutralised by historic 
tendencies; and Germany, also divided into a Luth- 
eran North and a Catholic South. All these coun- 
tries (except Spain proper) were again divided and 
shaken by the indomitable zeal of the new religion, 
and by the counter-reformation inspired from Rome 
and Toledo. The Catholic power held official com- 
mand in France, the Reforming power held it in 
England, with a permanent Catholic conspiracy in 
England, and a formidable Protestant rebellion in 
France, with Protestant pretenders to the throne; 
whilst even in Catholic Spain there was a party of 
political moderates, as well as a party of uncom- 
promising fanatics. 

The power of Spain seemed (and for the first half 
of Philip's reign perhaps really was) an ever-present 
danger to France, as well as to England, weakened as 
both were by religious divisions. If Philip, now the 
absolute master of the Iberian and Italian Penin- 
sulas and also of the Indies, could establish himself 
as equally absolute in the ISTetherlands, with their 
great commerce, wealth, and maritime aptitudes, the 
position of France, surrounded on three sides by her 
mighty rival, was one of continual peril. So, too, 
were Spain in undisputed command of this huge em- 
pire, and so face to face with the Thames and the 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 193 

eastern sea-board of England, it was no less a stand- 
ing peril to England, all the more that Philip was the 
sovereign who represented the Catholic reaction, as 
Elizabeth was the sovereign who represented the Re- 
forming interest, and that, with Catholic Ireland at 
her side, and her Catholic cousin as her sole heir, the 
position of Elizabeth was one of extreme danger. 
Philip, again, conld not rest under the fanaticism of 
his own nature, of his churchmen and people, and the 
pride and ambition of his consummate warriors ; and 
thus the recovery of his richest Provinces and the 
extirpation of the Calvinist heresy was to him a mat- 
ter of life or death. Thus it w^as that, for a genera- 
tion or more, the critical struggle swayed backwards 
and forwards across the revolted Provinces; and 
European complications revolved round their future 
settlement. 

In this tangle of interests and alternation of perils, 
each of the great powers naturally, and perhaps in- 
evitably, pursued a policy of counterpoise and 
double-dealing. The proud motto of Henry VIII. 
had been — Cui adhaereo, praeest. The new motto 
was — Ne quis praesit, caeteris adhaereo ( If one 
threatens mastery, I support the others'' ). It was 
of vital importance to France and to England that 
Philip should be occupied by insurrection in the 

[Netherlands. Both France and England were will- 
13 



ly4 WILLIAM THE SILENT, 

ing to give assistance to sustain the revolt, so far as 
they could do so, without forcing on a war with 
Spain, and without imperilling their own position 
between the Catholic and Protestant interests at' 
home. France and England could not form anv 
serious and lasting league with each other, apart 
from all national antipathies, because the Valois 
could not cease to be Catholic, nor could Elizabeth 
cease to be anti-Papal. E^or could either sovereign 
form any serious or lasting understanding with 
Spain, because to do so would hand them over to 
their own fanatical Catholics, and drive their Prot- 
estant subjects into uncontrollable rage. 

If France began to obtain control of the Nether- 
lands, it alarmed England and drove her to resist 
such a scheme. If England began to do the same 
thing, it alarmed France. Hence it resulted that the 
diplomatic history of Europe during the life of Wil- 
liam the Silent was an almost unparalleled maze of 
unscrupulous intrigue and shifting combinations, 
wherein the claims of religion, honor, mercy, and 
truth were regarded by all statesmen as mere phrases, 
so far as foreign countries were concerned, and 
wherein subtle and patriotic men strove per fas et 
nefas [through good and evil] to safeguard their own 
country and augment its strength. Machiavelli's 
Prince was in its most brilliant vogue. 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. I95 

In the centre of this desperate game stands Wil- 
liam of Orange, with a policy not less able, and cer- 

•^ tainly less tortious, than any around him. He is as 

„ indefatigable as Philip or Cecil, as subtle as Wal- 

singham or Granvelle, as ingenious in combinations 

as ever were Elizabeth or Catherine. But in all the 

whirl of intrigue he has steadily in view one domi- 

__ nant idea — free life for the I^etherlands, with liberty 
of worship, their old charters, and no Spanish sol- 
diery. From this he never swerves. To secure it he 
would accept the suzerainty of France. He would 
accept the suzerainty of England. He would accept 
incorporation with the Empire. He would accept 
partition of the provinces between France, England, 
. and Germany, subject to the local privileges and 
freedom of religion. He sought for a royal Podesta 
from abroad. He would even advise submission to 
Spain, if adequate guarantees could be devised to 

V secure the cessation of religious persecution and the 
withdrawal of Spanish troops. With these conditions 
as an irreducible minimum, William was continually 
scheming for some new alliance: to gain some exter- 
nal aid, however slight, precarious, and even sinister 
might be the hope it held out. 

It was an age when motives of self-preservation 
overrode in statesmen all questions of moral principle 
and of personal feeling. With them all, the universal 



196 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

rule was — that your enemy of to-day might be your 
friend of to-morrow — that to-morrow you might be 
fighting your friend of to-day — that frank alliances 
must be made even with those who had murdered 
your friends or sought to murder you — that you must 
suppress such words as ^' never/' ^' impossible," '' un- 
endurable/' — must nurse no resentment, yield to no 
affection, trust no one, shrink from no plot yourself, 
and suspect all plots in others. The Catholic enthusi- 
asts on one side, the Protestant enthusiasts on the 
other, were burning to serve God at the cost of blood, 
destruction, confusion, and crime. The patriots were 
fired by national glory; the people were moved by 
inveterate prejudices and affections. But the leading 
statesmen, and especially the sovereigns, kept their 
eyes fixed on the main chance — the safety of their 
own country and throne, without personal prejudices 
and without passion. Within a few months of the 
St. Bartholomew Massacre, Elizabeth exchanged 
ostentatious courtesies with the Valois princes and 
William the Silent was concluding an alliance with 
Charles IX. Philip and Alva sought the friendship 
of Elizabeth, whom they had plotted to assassinate. 
And Elizabeth alternately sent money and men to the 
revolted Provinces, and then tried to force them into 
abject surrender, when, abandoned by her, they flung 
themselves on Erance. 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 197 

The salient feature of the policy of Orange in this 
incessant gyration is the indomitable patience with 
which he met continual desertions, and his magnani- 
mous self-control under cruel disappointment and 
cutting indignities. Elizabeth might send him men 
and money, and as suddenly recall them ; she would 
encourage, menace, or desert him, as the safety of 
England seemed to her to require — she might even 
add to the politic artifices of diplomacy the restless 
caprices of a spoilt beauty, but the Prince met all 
her moods with dignified composure ; he gave her 
credit for patriotism, if not for sincerity. Again 
and again, undeterred by rebuffs, he importuned her 
to give him such help as she thought fit. He seemed 
always ready to admit that, to the Queen of England, 
the safety of England was paramount and the 
welfare of the Xetherlands but a move in the great 
game. And he quite understood that Elizabeth her- 
self held in detestation both Calvinism and rebellion, 
by which indeed her policy at home was circled and 
embarrassed at every step. 

The expeditions of the Sea Beggars, which led to 
the seizure of Brill and Flushing, were mainly sup- 
plied from England, with the full knowledge of 
Elizabeth and her ministers ; and this continued until 
Alva's vigorous action forced her to withdraw her aid. 
The close union of the Xassaus with Coligny and the 



198 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

French Crown drove Elizabeth to take up a hostile 
attitude to the Dutcli, but she suffered English sol- 
diers to gain a footing. Immediately after the St. 
Bartholomew Massacre, the Prince opened fresh nego- 
tiations with Elizabeth. From her he obtained little 
or nothing; but, under her eyes, he received large 
sums and bands of volunteers from the Protestant 
congregations. He sends over agents to England to 
collect funds and raise troops, and he enters into a 
formal treaty of mutual help with English merchants. 
He is said to have received £250,000 from London. 
But the Queen w^ould give him no open support. 

As the siege of Haarlem was drawing to its fatal 
issue, the Prince made a desperate effort to induce the 
English Government to help them. He protested his 
devotion to the Queen and his wishes for her prosper- 
ity. He had informed her of his negotiations with 
foreign powers, and had pressed her to accept the pro- 
tectorate of Holland and Zeeland. If the Low Coun- 
tries were crushed, the Spaniards were certain to turn 
their forces against England. If the Queen would 
accept these sea provinces (and they would put in her 
hands as a guarantee Flushing, Brill, Rotterdam, and 
Enkhuysen), she would immensely strengthen her 
command of the sea, for the Spaniards in the penin- 
sula had no such havens, shipping, or mariners. He 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 199 

protested indignantly against the imputation that he 
was a rebel, or was heading a rebellion. 

He declared before the Almighty Majesty of God that these 
wars were not for ambition or gain. He had steadily refused 
the sovereignty liimself, and he could always withdraw (if he 
pleased) to a quiet life in his own hereditary domain. The 
war was one solely in defence of religion and the freedom of 
the people — a cause for which he would refuse no travail or 
danger till the last drop of his blood were spent. Tlie Estates 
pressed on the Queen to take full possession of Holland and 
Zeeland ; they were resolved, if she refused, to throw them- 
selves on the French, who would then be masters of the Low 
Countries. To prevent that, let the Queen put herself at the 
head of a Protestant League, and, with the aid of the German 
Protestant chiefs, effect some peaceful settlement of the re- 
volted jjrovinces. Rather than they should fall into the Span- 
iards' hands they would not only die with their country, hut, 
before they died, they would entangle tlwsame with such a devil 
as' should root out the name of the Spaniards for ever amongst 
them. 

In spite of this eloquent appeal, warmly supported 
now and manv times bv her own counsellors, Eliza- 
beth steadily rejected the tempting offer. She was at 
this very time disposed to make some arrangement 
with Alva and with Philip. She was very willing to 
see the Xetherlands embarrass and exhaust Spain. 
From time to time, as it suited her moves upon the 
board, she allowed them to have men, money, and 
ships. She always took care not to drive them to 
despair, not to suffer them to be utterly exterminated. 
She would not accept their protectorate; she would 



200 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

not let any other power accept it. She would give no 
official countenance either to rebellion or to Calvin- 
ism — much as she was willing to profit by both in 
enabling her to hold her ground against France and 
Spain. She would not risk her very existence by a 
premature war with Philip ; she would not encumber 
her country with a new Calais and new continental 
appanages, however tempting they might seem, ^or 
would she, semi-Catholic head of an Anglican epis- 
copacy, put herself at the head of a motley anti-papal 
confederacy of Lutheran adventurers. Huguenot 
rebels, and Calvinist fanatics. In a word, during the 
whole life of William of Orange, Elizabeth played 
fast and loose with the cause of the Low Countries, 
alternately helping and abandoning them, now en- 
couraging, now rebuking, not willing to see them 
crushed, not daring to protect them. It was not until 
after the death of William, as the inevitable war with 
Spain was approaching, that Elizabeth sent an army 
to the Netherlands ; and even then she prosecuted the 
war with so poor a heart that it achieved no result. 
She could not bring herself to act on their side, and 
when she did act she was too late. 

In the same spirit as with Elizabeth did the Prince 
deal with France. First he sought and obtained aid 
from the Huguenot rebels, and personally fought 
against the royal armies, ISTot long aft^r he seeks and 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 201 

obtains aid from the King, and is in close but secret 
alliance with Catherine and Charles. Then the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew was a cruel blow^ to all his 
hopes, coming on the top of the horrid murder of his 
own dearest friends. Yet nine months later he is 
again negotiating an alliance with Charles, still fresh 
from the Huguenot slaughter. When Anjou, the 
principal instigator of the massacre, becomes Henri 
III., William congratulates him and enters into terms 
of friendship. When the miserable Alencon seems 
willing to throw his lot in with the struggling Prov- 
inces, Orange gives him a steady support, in spite of 
the incurable treacherv of the man, and the insolent 
menaces with which in turn Elizabeth assailed him. 
His one inflexible idea is to save the land of his adop- 
tion from the Inquisition and from Spanish tyranny, 
however false, however blood-stained were the hands 
which ne<?essity impelled him to grasp, however 
treacherous and grasping were the powers at whose 
feet he bent himself to sue. 

The restless Louis of l^assau was hardly recovered 
from his prostration before we find him occupied with 
new negotiations with the French king, with the Ger- 
man princes, the Emperor, and even Philip. In all 
this William takes no active part except to gain time 
and to insist on his unalterable conditions — First, 
" Tine reformed religion according to the Word of 



202 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

God and freedom of worship " ; Secondly, '' The 
C ommoniuealth and the whole land restored to its 
ancient privileges and liberty'' ; Thirdly, ''Strangers, 
and in particular Spaniards, in civil or military em- 
ployment, to he ivithdrawn.". Besides this, the King 
should pay the soldiers whom the Prince had engaged. 
He does not think that Philip will accept these terms, 
nor that the German princes can obtain adequate 
guarantees for their faithful execution. It need 
hardly be said that they did not succeed ; nor did the 
King of Spain, who did not pay his own men, pay the 
troops who had been fighting against him for heretics 
and rebels. 

The Prince had more hope from Prance, which 
during his whole career was the quarter to which he 
most inclined. And in the spring of the year succeed- 
ing the St. Bartholomew, he again permitted his 
brothers to negotiate with Charles. But he warned 
them that, after the massacre, it was very difficult to 
induce the Protestants to trust the Prench Court. His 
terms were still — freedom of worship for the Re- 
formers, war in the Netherlands on Spain, or money 
and men to carry on the war for themselves, the 
French to retain what they could capture, except in 
Holland and Zeeland, and to have a protectorate of 
these. These were the terms which he constantly of- 
fered to France. It was at the time when, strangely 



DEATH GEAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 203 

enough, proposals for a settlement in the Netherlands 
were made simultaneouslv on behalf of the Erench 
king, eager to clear himself of the stain of the mas- 
sacre and to assist his brother to the Crown of Poland, 
and also on behalf of the King of Spain, then eager to 
obtain the Imperial Crown. 

The Prince did not personally take part in any of 
these negotiations. He was willing to try if anything 
could come of them — always subject to his inflexible 
conditions. The powerful and outspoken letter of 
Louis to Charles IX. — one of the most daring appeals 
ever made by a private person to a sovereign — may 
have touched the conscience of the dying King. The 
ardent young hero was loaded with protestations of 
support from the French Court and received a very 
large sum of money. With this he raised an army of 
6000 foot and 3000 cavalry — all, alas! inexperienced 
volunteers or disorderly mercenaries. 

At the head of this force Count Louis crossed the 
Rhine in a stormy February of 1574, having at his 
side his brothers John and Henry, and Duke Chris- 
topher, son of the Elector Palatine. Orange raised 
6000 men in Holland and tried to join his brother, 
warning him in vain not to be caught in a trap alone. 
But the Spanish captains, rushing upon Louis, drove 
him back staggering down the Metise, with a lawless 
and mutinous army, entangled in the swamps of the 



204 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Meuse and the Waal. At Mookheath, near !N'ijmegen, 
what remained of the little army was outmanoeuvred, 
crushed, and exterminated, — Louis, Henry, and 
Christopher perishing, as was supposed, in the blood- 
stained stream."^ And thus the gallant Louis disap- 
pears from his brother's side, where he had fought, 
schemed, and toiled with such reckless audacity and 
such indomitable ardor. 

Shortly before this William publicly professed the 
Calvinist faith. A minister wrote to London — " Our 
godly Stadtholder has come to the communion, and 
therein has broken the Lord's bread, and has sub- 
mitted to discipline, which is no small event." Bom 
and baptized as a Lutheran, bred a Catholic, the 
Prince had again professed the Lutheran faith in mid- 
dle life; and now, at the age of forty, he joined the 
Calvinist communion. He never pretended that any of 
these changes of creed was a matter of conviction. In 
all his intimate leeters to his family, letters of entire 
sincerity and candor, there is no allusion to his change 
of profession. The letters breathe an unmistakable 
spirit of personal piety, trust in the goodness and 
mercy of God, and reverential submission to His will. 
Beyond that, all questions of theology and of worship 
were to him subordinate matters of personal opinion 

* For the disaster at Mook Heath, see p. 146, and p. 150, 
note ; also, p. 208. 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 205 

and local ordinance. From time to time lie joined 
that communion with which it seemed to him best to 
work in the supreme cause of freedom of thought and 
public liberty. 

We are told that as a young man William had had 
a secret interview with the eminent jurist, Frangois 
Baudouin, who had an Utopian idea of a fusion be- 
tween the Catholic and Protestant faith. William's 
practical sense rejected this as a working possibility, 
but throughout his whole career he was willing to 
respect the good side of every creed, and stoutly re- 
sisted the evils in all. Why cannot you live together 
in amity ? was his permanent attitude of mind. 
Against persecution in any form his whole nature 
flamed up with indignation — equally whether the 
victims were Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, or Ana- 
baptist. As he said in a noble speech in the Council 
of the Regent, in 1566 : — 

In all earthly things there must be order, and above all other 
things in religion, to maintain the peace of the country and 
salvation of souls. But it must be such an order as can be 
accepted. By the Inquisition religion is sacrificed, for to see 
men burned for holding what they feel to be right, sorely 
troubles the people and raises a case of conscience — whereby 
judges lose all credit and authority. 

As a statesman, religions appealed to him in their 
social, and not in their doctrinal aspect. Like Eliza- 
beth, he would have been content to remain Catholic, 



206 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

had it not been for tlie papal persecution and exclusive 
pretensions. Like Henri TV., he frankly changed his 
nominal communion from political necessity. But he 
was free from the levity of Henri and the intolerance 
of Elizabeth. He neither jested nor excused his 
change. In all his various professions he was equally 
tolerant towards Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists. 
He continually told all Protestants that he could not 
see what need divide them, nor why any one sect 
claimed the right to dictate to the rest. His one 
dominant idea in religion was to get rid of all per- 
secution and to tolerate different forms of worship 
side by side. The atrocities committed by his own 
partisan chiefs, Count de la Marck, Sonoy, and the 
rest gave him deep anxiety. Catholics had very nat- 
urally regarded him as a secret heretic ; Lutherans 
then looked on him as a time-server; and Calvinists 
still regarded him as weak vesseL He treated all 
these charges with serene indifference. So far as he 
dared, he punished the authors of outrage and crime. 
As a matter of statesmanlike policy, he openly and 
quietly united himself with that theological commun- 
ion wherein he saw that he could best serve the cause 
of civil and religious liberty. And when he joined 
the communion, he held to it with perfect loyalty and 
unswerving moderation. 

Again and again in his private letters William 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 207 

pours forth, along with unhesitating trust in Provi- 
dence, his sense of isolation and bereavement. '' It is 
not possible for me to bear alone such labors and the 
burden of such weighty cares as press on me from 
hour to hour, without one man at my side to help me.'' 
" I have not a soul to aid me in all my anxieties and 
toils." Ste. Aldegonde ^ had been captured, and 
would have been executed by the Spaniards had not 
the Prince vowed to deal the same by Admiral Bossu, 
whom he had taken in fight about the same time. The 
excitable and eloquent secretary languished in prison, 
and implored the Prince to surrender and abandon the 
struggle. In a noble set of letters, full of feeling for 
the despondent prisoner and of stern resolution, Will- 
iam patiently rebukes the impatience of his friend, 
and rehearses the enormities of Philip and of Alva. 
In public and in private he poured forth stirring ap- 
peals to the struggling cities and to the world around. 
The war went on with varying fortune, horrible suf- 
ferings, and heroic deeds. Here and there a town 
was won, a commander captured, a force repulsed. 
By the beginning of 1574 William was master of all 

* The Spanish admiral, Bossu, was captured in a naval en- 
gagement on the Zuyder Zee, October 11, 1573. Ste. Alde- 
gonde was captured about three weeks later at the battle 
of Maaslandsluis, a small town about a dozen miles below 
Rotterdam. Thus Bossu was held by William the Silent as 
hostage for the honorable treatment of Ste. Aldegonde. 



208 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Holland, except Amsterdam and Haarlem, and of all 
Zeeland, except South Beveland and Tholen; and 
Leyden still resisted the utmost efforts of Spain. 

Disaster, defeat, and isolation did not crush the 
Prince. In a long and exhaustive letter to John, who 
by a lucky accident had escaped the slaughter of 
Mook,"^ William pours forth his grief for the loss of 
his brothers, and his plans for the time to come. 

" If they be dead, as I can no longer doubt, we must submit 
to the will of God and trust in His divine Providence, that He 
who has given the blood of His only Son to maintain His 
Church will do nothing but what will redound to the ad- 
vancement of His glory and the preservation of His Church — 
however impossible it may appear. And though we all were 
to die, and all this poor people were massacred and driven 
out, we still must trust that God will not abandon his own." 
And then he goes on to detail at great length his schemes and 
his necessities, hardly knowing, he says, what he is doing, 
with his head so racked with a multitude of cares and sorrow 
for the loss (as he fears) of his brothers. Letter after letter 
to Louis had received no answer, for Louis was lying dead in 
his unknown place of rest. And this most intimate letter to 
John was intercepted by Spain, and was recovered and sent 
to Maurice long years after his father's death. 

To understand the nature of William of Orange we 
cannot do better than study this long letter to John, 
written at the moment of a gTeat disaster and cruel 
bereavement. The text fills twelve pages of print, 
and is full of piety, tenderness, pathos, politic 

* See p. 150, note. 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 209 

schemes, strategic and diplomatic instructions, and 
unconquerable determination. He ends thus : — 



" If no prince or power will give us help, and for want of it 
we are all to perish, so be it in God's name ! Yet withal w:e 
shall have the honor of having done what no nation ever yet 
did, of having defended and maintained ourselves, in so petty 
a land, against the mighty and horrid efforts of such powerful 
enemies, without any aid from others. And if the poor people 
of these parts, abandoned by all the world, still resolve to 
hold out as they have done till now, and as I trust they will 
continue to do, and if it do not please God to chastise us and 
utterly destroy us, it ivill still cost the Spaniards the half of 
Spain, in wealth as luell as in men, before they will have made 
an end of tts." Stirring and prophetic words ! 



All this time the Prince was dogged by assassins. 

He had for years been on his guard, and had escaped 

many attempts. The correspondence of Philip and 

his officers contains continual references to schemes 

for this end. Philip on the margin of reports wrote — 

^^ They show little pluck not to kill him ; that is the 

only remedy." Cardinal Granvelle urged the King 

to have William and Louis both put out of the way 

" like Turks." Spanish, Italian, German, French, 

and English assassins were put upon the work; but 

either their heart failed them or the Prince caught 

them. The French as well as the Spanish envoys are 

constantly reporting the same conspiracies. Philip's 

agents write — " The King approves of the plan and 
14 



210 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

would be rejoiced to have the world rid of both 
brothers." 

When Requesens succeeded Alva, he was expressly 
ordered " to despatch (despachar) William and Louis 
of E^assau. He was to find determined men and offer 
them an adequate reward. But the King was not to 
be known as the authority for it." Requesens obeyed, 
and made large offers, but after many months he 
writes back to Madrid that he has little hope of suc- 
cess, unless God help him to do it. (De hacer matar 
al principe d'Oranges, si Dios no lo hace, no tengb 
esperanza.) ^ot only, says he in despair, does God 
show no favor to our assassins, who are mere rogues 
and swindlers (chocareros y sacadineros) , but the 
beggars are trying the same thing against us ! So far 
as the Prince is concerned that charge was false ; but 
he had his secret information, even in the cabinet of 
Philip, and received notice of all that passed there, it 
is said, by the agency to no small degree of women. 
He avoided, arrested, and executed certain of these 
assassins, and terrified the rest. It was the age of 
assassination ; and no court and no nation was wholly 
free from the taint. In the Papal, Spanish, Italian, 
and French governments it was one of the recognised 
weapons of constituted powers. There is no evidence, 
direct or indirect, that William at any time gave his 
sanction to the murder of an opponent. But the last 



DEATH GRAPPLE— NEGOTIATIONS. 211 

twelve years of his life were passed in constant peril 
of assassination, to which in the end he fell a victim J^ 

* The sixth volume of Gachard's Correspondance (pp. 
i.-clxxiv. and 1-246) is occupied with documents relating to 
these various conspiracies. It forms an amazing repertory of 
official assassinations. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

KEQUESEI^S LEYDEN CHARLOTTE DE BOURBON. 

1573-1576. 

The collapse of the baffled tyrant at the end of the 
year 1573 marked a real turn in the long struggle. 
The successor of Alva was expected to bring a change 
in the tactics of Spain.* To some extent he did this. 
And now, after six years of war, the drain upon her 
resources, the chaos in her civil and military admini- 
stration, the heroism of the Hollanders, and the in- 

* " Eequesens himself, diplomat rather than warrior, was 
animated wuth a desire to pacify the Netherlands with gentle 
methods. He counted much on an amnesty issued in 1574, 
from which only about three hundred persons were excluded, 
while papal forgiveness was offered for heresy. Orange and 
liis adherents were, naturally, among the exceptions. This 
failed, however, to inspire confidence. The new Pardona was 
dubbed Pandora^ Catholic lack of faith towards Protestants 
was called to mind by the Calvinists, and Requesens' friend- 
ship for the Jesuits was looked at askance. . . Every attempt 
at negotiation failed. Neither offers of pecuniary indemnifi- 
cation to the prince himself, on condition of his leaving the 
Netherlands, nor propositions to the Estates of Holland could 
shake either the one or the other in their resolution to con- 
tinue the struggle vso long as no trustworthy peace was made." 
— Blok, History of the Dutch People, ii., 79. 

212 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 213 

domitable energy of their leaders, slowly and amidst 
many disasters were seen to tell. Spain began to 
parley ; even Philip listened to a compromise ; chronic 
mutiny and anarchy among his soldiers turned their 
victories into defeat ; and exhausting repulses now 
began to alternate with their dear-bought triumphs. 
In the result, thenceforth, for some four or five years, 
the cause of the patriots and of Orange was in the 
ascendant, down to the advent of Alexander Farnese, 
Prince of Parma, whose supreme genius in war and 
in craft again restored the mastery of Spain. 

The crushing defeat which the skill of d'Avila and 
the gallantry of his troopers had inflicted on Louis at 
Mookheath was neutralized by a mutiny of the Span- 
ish forces. They clamored for arrears, chose an 
Eletto, or dictator, pillaged and rode riot far and 
near; and, forming an independent army of free 
lances, they defied Requesens and seized on Antwerp 
until their demands were satisfied at the cost of the 
city. These mutinies, and the orgies of outrage and 
extortion to which they led, undid the work of their 
arms, and drove the I^etherlanders of the Southern 
Provinces into union more effectively than did the 
heroism of the men of Holland and the fervid appeals 
of the Prince. 

Paralysed by bankruptcy, anarchy, and mutiny, the 
Grand Commander was driven to hope something 



214: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

from negotiation, which he first intended as a ruse. 
There now begins a long series of abortive attempts 
towards a compromise, which revealed the exhaustion 
of Spain ; whilst, owing to the license of the mutinous 
troops, the union amongst the provinces was con- 
solidated or renewed. And thus, in the end, the over- 
throw of the young Counts of ^Nassau and the last 
army that could be raised from without, was compen- 
sated by a closer combination within, and deeper 
hatred of the Spanish oppressor. 

The war was no longer a monotony of massacre for 
the patriot forces. The repulse of Don Frederic from 
Alkmaar had been followed up by the defeat of Count 
Bossu, the Spanish captain in the Zuider Zee. Mon- 
dragon was now in desperate straits in Middelburg; 
and the gallant Boisot, in a furious sea fight under the 
eyes of the Grand Commander, destroyed the Spanish 
ships which were sent to his rescue. The capitulation 
of the fiery Mondragon and the capture of Middel- 
' burg* marked the epoch when the Spaniard was 

* The siege of Alkmaar, which had lasted seven weeks, was 
raised Octobers, 1573; the defeat and capture of Admiral 
Bossu occurred October 11 ; the articles of the capitulation of 
Middelburg were drawn up February 18, 1574, and three days 
later Mondragon and those who wished to accompany him 
left the city, having been starved out. For some time the 
famine in the city reduced the beleaguered to '* nothing but 
rats, mice, dogs, cats, and such repulsive substitutes for food, 
to support life withal." 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 215 

forced to recognise the Hollanders as " belligerents/' 
not as rebels, and the Prince as their lawful Stadt- 
holder, and not a proscribed outlaw. The second siege 
of Leyden opened with as little hopes of any immedi- 
ate victory for the King as did the first. Altogether, 
as the struggle gradually but inevitably drifted into a 
maritime war, the superiority of the Spanish veterans 
ceased to tell, and the heroism of the Dutch seamen 
reaped its reward. 

It would be an endless and unprofitable task to set 
forth in detail the subtle and repeated overtures made 
to the Prince in order to bend his resolution and 
bring the Provinces to submit. Spain at last recog- 
nised that through him alone could any settlement be 
effected. He was approached by many agents and 
from various quarters and lands. Throughout the 
whole of these complicated negotiations we find him 
holding on to one inflexible set of conditions, which, 
he saw but too clearly, nothing but dire necessity 
could ever wring from Philip. Over and over again, 
he savs, our terms are these : 1. Withdrawal from 
our country of all Spaniards and foreigners. 2. 
Free exercise of the Word of God according to the 
Gospel. 3. Restoration of the ancient rights, privi- 
leges, and liberties of the land. And for these three 
concessions there must be given solid guarantees. 
These were his terms (he tells his brothers, l^ovem- 



216 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

ber 1573) : '' I have already stated them in my let- 
ters, and I have nothing else to propose." 

The overtures began first with indirect hints and 
unauthorised suggestions of third parties, v^hich 
raised vain hopes, and have led hostile writers into 
absurd misrepresentations; to these succeeded letters 
and at last interviews by the Prince's personal 
friends ; and finally there were long and complicated 
conferences between regular envoys. All came to 
nothing. IN^either the Prince nor the Dutch ever 
yielded a single point of their irreducible minimum. 
And, as William w^ell knew, Philip had no intention 
whatever of accepting any one of the three terms, 
which from first to last, remained antecedent condi- 
tions sijie quihus non. 

To put aside the vague suggestions for reconcilia- 
tion thrown out from time to time from Germany, 
France, and England, we find Julian Romero, the 
fierce soldier who led Egmont and Horn to the 
scaffold, Avriting most courteously to the Prince and 
soliciting a personal interview. This however, in a 
ceremonious answer, William declines, for reasons 
which he politely omits to state ; but he offers to send 
two confidential agents to meet the General, whilst 
urging him to lay before the King the terms on which 
peace might be had. At the same time Ste. Alde- 
jronde, his spirit cowed or perverted by captivity and 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 217 

its terrors, is induced to write imploring the Prince 
to yield. In firm and noble letters in reply, William 
insists that he cannot act without the States, that it 
is impossible to surrender the country to the mercy 
of Spain, that he is resolutely laboring to prosecute 
the war, and withal to protect the prisoner and to 
secure his release. A few months after his own in- 
stallation as Governor, Requesens obtains Philip's 
sanction to a new attempt by the agency of Dr. Leon- 
inus, a professor at Louvain. This learned diplom- 
atist deputed a certain Hugo Bonte, formerly Pen- 
sionary of Middelburg, to sound the Prince at Pom- 
mel. The envoy received the usual answer. The 
Prince rejected the idea of " Pardon " altogether ; if 
he fell in the struggle, he would have died with a 
glorious name ; and however mighty was the King of 
Spain, they put their trust in a King still mightier 
than all kings. 

The envoys of Spain persisted ; and Bonte was 
sent on a second mission two months later to Rotter- 
dam, to propose a conference between delegates from 
the insurgent States and delegates from the Royalist 
party. Orange raised difficulties as to any safe- 
conduct or promise given by Spain. When the 
envoy urged that no change of religion could be 
tolerated, the Prince replied that the Turks freely 
permitted various sects in their Empire, and even 



218 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

the Pope tolerated the Jews. If thej were driven to 
extremities they would put their country into some 
strong hand as protector — for their land '' was a 
beautiful damsel, handsomely attired, for whose 
hand there were many suitors, a land so strong and 
well armed that it might resist even the Grand 
Turk." The comparison was much quoted, for it 
contained a truth of wide significance. 

Other envoys were sent, who received the same 
reply ; and at last Requesens released Ste. Aldegonde 
on parole and sent him to treat with the Prince at 
Rotterdam (July 1574.) After a long interview on 
minor points William answered that he had done and 
would do nothing without the assent of the delegates 
of the States. As to himself, if they should think it 
right, he would leave the country, for he sought noth- 
ing for himself. Xothing, he said, could be done 
whilst the foreign troops remained. Let them be 
withdrawn, and the States would decide on their 
future lot. The despatch which the envoy carried 
back to his prison from the States was not one that 
held out much promise of a settlement, either in 
substance or in form. 

At the close of the year 1574, after more than 
twelve months of unprofitable negotiations, the 
Grand Commander sent Dr. Leoninus with Bonte on 
a further mission to the Prince. The solemn report 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 219 

of the learned and vebose civilian is weary reading. 
William kept him for months at arm's length ; and at 
last, in a long private interview, cut short his subtle- 
ties and formalities, told him that freedom of relig- 
ion was an indispensable condition, and that both the 
States and himself could put no trust in any promise 
of Spain, whose " clemency " was a mockery, and 
whose phrases would not deceive them. These futile 
pour-parlers resulted in nothing but a yet more futile 
conference at Breda, which was protracted from the 
beginning of March to the middle of July 1575. Ten 
delegates from the States met the agents of Philip, 
with the Prince's brother-in-law, as representing the 
Emperor!^ The Prince himself took no personal part 
in the debates, which he followed and directed from 
Dort. Philip, now seriously alarmed, like the Em- 
peror, desired to end the struggle. Orange and the 
States desired it no less. But neither Philip nor 



* Count Schwartzburg, brother-in-law of the Prince of 
Orange, represented Maximilian II., emperor of The Holy 
Roman Empire. The emperor had long exerted himself to 
bring about the pacification of the Netherlands, while William 
the Silent ** was sincerely in favor of peace — but not a dis- 
honorable peace in which should be renounced all the objects 
of the war. He was far from sanguine on the subject, for he 
read the signs of the times and the character of Philip too 
accurately to believe mucli more in the success of the present 
than in that of the past efforts of MaxiiniUan," 



220 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Orange would yield a point on the only material 
questions at issue. 

These various attempts at negotiation, carried on 
for some twenty months, had done nothing but con- 
vince both sides that the contest must be fought to the 
bitter end. From first to last the Prince had never 
expected the smallest definite result, -nor had he 
given any one reason to imagine that he did. He 
permitted these overtures to go on, w^ithout hope and 
without guile. Plainly and consistently he main- 
tained one uniform policy, which he stated in full — 
a policy as impossible to reduce as it was beyond hope 
to obtain. But an indirect end resulted which he 
may have foreseen, and could not regret. Time, on 
the whole, favored the revolt. ^Negotiation betrayed 
the exhaustion of Spain. The conference of the Cal- 
vinist States cemented their incipient union, and ac- 
customed them to look up to William as their real 
sovereign and head. 

These negotiations, in which the Grand Com- 
mander persevered, were largely due to the exhaust- 
ing and humiliating repulse of Spain by the heroic 
city of Leyden. This memorable triumph of the Hol- 
landers entirely changed the aspect of the war. Ley- 
den had been closely besieged for nearly six months, 
when the advance of the ill-fated Louis gave it a tem- 
porary relief. Two months later a powerful Spanish 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 221 

army closed in upon it again. The Prince exerted all 
his energies to encourage the citizens, to rouse Hol- 
land to support them, and to stir up the German 
princes. A volume would be needed to recount in 
full the horrors, the marvels, the heroisms of this 
stupendous siege. Our simpler task is to watch the 
efforts of William the Silent, who never more than 
now deserved to be known as William the Indefati- 
gable. He placed himself in a fortified camp be- 
tween Delft and Rotterdam, and there he commanded 
the djkes round Ley den. Herein lay the salvation 
of the doomed city. It Avas hopeless to meet the 
Spanish forces on land, but they could be beaten by 
sea. Leyden was six miles from the sea. But the 
whole country round it lay below the level of high 
tide, and by opening the great dykes, the sea could 
be brought to Leyden. The genius of the Hollanders 
and their leader seized upon this peculiar condition, 
whereby an army was driven from its entrenchments 
by seamen, and an inland city was rescued by a fleet 
which sailed into its streets. 

The Prince in person directed the cutting of the 
dykes, having persuaded the people to submit to the 
sacrifice. ^' Better ruin the land than lose the land," 
said they ; and a fleet of two hundred vessels was col- 
lected to sail over their meadows and crops when the 
sea had covered them. But the sea came in some- 



222 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

what slowly; and in the meantime the citizens were 
reduced to famine. In the midst of the crisis the 
Prince, w^orn out by his exhausting efforts in the 
swampy land, was prostrated with fever. Racked 
with anxiety and sunk in despondency, he lay at 
death's door, still dictating despatches, and sending 
messengers right and left in the intervals of his 
stupor. He was told that Lej^den had fallen, and 
an envoy found him alone in bed, and in great ex- 
haustion. Within a month his strong constitution 
recovered its vitality. In a letter to his brother on 
the Yth of September, he pours out his thanks to God, 
who, he trusts, will not try him beyond what the 
weakness of the flesh can endure; and he urgently 
implores John to assist him with funds, and to ap- 
peal once more to the German chiefs. 

From abroad came no sign of aid. But at last 
Admiral Boisot came out of Zeeland with a force of 
wild sea-dogs, sworn neither to give nor to ask quar- 
ter, embarked in large barges charged with cannon, 
arms, and provisions. Again and again Boisot 
pressed across the flooded plain and stormed redoubts 
of the besiegers, whilst the famished citizens of Ley- 
den still kept the Spaniard at bay. Orange rose from 
his sick bed, inspired the patriot fleet to a last effort, 
and ordered the cutting of the remaining dyke. By 
the 1st of October a gale sprung up from the west^ 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 223 

sweeping the ocean across the drowned land, and 
carrying Boisot into the besiegers' entrenched camp. 
Terrific combats ensued night and day, till the Span- 
ish commander, sullenly admitting that he was 
beaten, " but by the sea, not by the foe," took refuge 
in such causeways as he could find above the flood. 
The Zeelanders swept along the canals into the city, 
flinging provisions to the starving citizens as they 
rowed up the waterways to the great church. There 
Boisot and his men, the gallant Burgomaster and 
his famished citizens, magistrates, soldiers, sailors, 
women, and children offered up thaiAsgiving for 
their wellnigh miraculous deliverance. That same 
day, the 3d of October, memorable in the annals of 
Holland — in the annals of patriotism — ^the great 
news was brought to Delft, where the Prince and the 
citizens were in church. It was read aloud from the 
pulpit, the congregation decorously waiting to hear 
the sermon out. The next day the Prince reached 
Ley den, where he did ample justice to the heroism 
of the citizens in their wonderful defence, gave 
them some honorary and pecuniary privileges, and 
founded that illustrious university which for three 
centuries has been a foremost seat of science, letters, 
theology, and law. 

This grand feat of arms roused new life in the 
provinces, both Dutch and Belgian. By the end of 



221 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

October the Prince again sent an emissary to his 
brother, charged to confer with the German chiefs and 
to give a report of the good promise of things in Hol- 
land. Day after day the Grand Commander poured 
out to the King his troubles and his needs, giving 
him a true picture of the mutinies in the armies and 
the defiance of the rebels. '^ They will never yield,'' 
he tells his master, " except at the last gasp, and by 
refusing supplies they mean to force his Majesty to 
close the war." The next month a very important 
step was taken in fixing the authority of the Prince. 
Hitherto his position had been ill-defined; he could 
only obtain contributions irregularly and by constant 
appeals, and he was obliged to consult the States on 
the conduct of the war, and involve himself in endless 
disputes. He now called upon them to give him a 
free hand or to take the entire control of the govern- 
ment into their own hands. 

So peremptorily summoned, the States conferred 
on his Excellency ^' absolute power, authority, and 
sovereign command in all concerns of the common 
land without exception." He required 45,000 florins* 
a month to prosecute the war. The States attempted 
to bargain, and proposed 30,000 florins. William 
refused this sum with no small warmth. He was 

* The florin of the Netherlands was worth about forty 
cents. 



REQUESENS-LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 225 

ready to go off and leave the country, which they 
could then administer with all the economy they 
thought fit. This closed the matter; the 45,000 
florins were granted without demur. Thus, within 
some weeks of the relief of Leyden, the Prince was 
legally installed in a sovereign position over Holland, 
w^ith a fixed budget that he had estimated as neces- 
sary for the service. His effort to bring Zeeland into 
the union did not fully succeed until the following 
year. 

In the midst of these public cares there was con- 
summated in the personal life of William of Orange 
an act which showed all his bold, obstinate, and mas- 
terful nature, while strangely belying his character 
for prudence and exclusive devotion to the State. It 
was now seven years since his wretched wife, Anne 
of Saxony, had deserted and defied him; four years 
since she had been convicted of adultery. She was 
now insane, and was practically a prisoner in E^as- 
sau. From that time the Prince had ceased to hold 
himself bound, and spoke of her as " his former 
wife." * In 1575 her own family took her back, and, 
at the desire of the Hassans, immured her in a 
dungeon in Dresden in the barbarous fashion of that 
age. At the same time William resolved on contract- 
ing a third marriage ; and in the face of violent op- 

* Seep. 141. 
15 



226 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

position, both public and private, he carried out his 
purpose with cool but desperate self-will. 

Charlotte de Bourbon was a younger daughter of 
Louis, Due de Montpensier, of the royal House of 
France. As an infant she was sent from her home 
and brought up in the rich Abbey of Jouarre,* of 
which her aunt was Abbess. There she was forced 
by threats to take the veil at the age of twelve, in 
spite of her violent protests, and in violation of the 
canons as to the age of profession. And this outrage 
on religion and on humanity w^as aggravated by the 
fact that this poor child was made Abbess on the col- 
lusive resignation of her aunt. At the age of eighteen 
the young Abbess drew up a formal document, at- 
tested by witnesses, repudiating the outrage of which 
she was the victim. Having reached the age of 
tAventy-five, thoroughly penetrated with the Protest- 
ant convictions of so many of her near relations, 
whom she fnlly consulted, by the advice of the Queen 
of IsTavarre, the mother of Henri IV., Charlotte delib- 
erately renounced her odious and forced profession, 
publicly abandoned the Abbey with two other nuns, 
and sought protection at Heidelberg with the Elector 
Palatine. The wrath of the Duke, her father, the 
indignation of her Catholic relations and of the whole 
Catholic world, was a natural result, which the gener- 
* Jouarre (or Jouars) lies about twenty miles west of Paris. 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE 227 

ous support of the Puritan Elector and his wife 
enabled her to brave. At Heidelberg she was in the 
centre of the Protestant ferment during the dreadful 
epoch of St. Bartholomew, and there for three years 
she lived in continual contact with the preachers, 
refugees, and chiefs of the Huguenot cause. It was 
in the first days of her escape from the Abbey that 
William seems to have seen her at the Elector's Court. 
He cannot have seen her again. But now three years 
later he is seized with a resolve to make her his wife. 

His lawful wife was still living. She was the 
heiress of one of the great princes of Germany, and 
he could not repudiate her without stirring them to 
wrath. To marry a renegade nun was to call out 
execrations from the whole Catholic world. To ally 
himself with the royal House of Prance was to 
awaken all the jealousy of rival nations and all the 
suspicions of his Calvinist people at home. He was 
immersed in debt ; his life was in hourly peril ; he 
had hardly any home that he could call his own. He 
was no longer young, and was older than his years. 
He had five living children by his two wives, and of 
these he had never seen much. Xevertheless he 
resolved to marry a woman whom he had not seen for 
years, and with whom he can have had nothing but a 
very slight acquaintance at one very short period. 

William was certainly a man who craved sym- 



228 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

pathj, a man with a tender heart, and of warm tem- 
perament. For seven years, since the desertion of his 
wife, the break-up of his home, and the dispersion of 
his children, his life had been utterly lonely. All his 
colleagues and almost all his friends were gone. All 
his brothers were dead, except John, who was far 
away. His eldest son was a prisoner and a pervert in 
Spain ; he had no home where he could bring his 
daughters or his young boy. His only intimates were 
a few secretaries, no one of whom was in any sense 
his companion. And thus, with all the deliberation 
and thoroughness of foresight which marked his 
every step, he resolved to have his existing marriage 
dissolved by legal forms, and to take to his home 
another wife. 

The circumstances as well as the man forbid us to 
regard this as an outburst of passion. For years he 
had made no attempt to see the object of his choice. 
He addressed her as a prince desiring an alliance, not 
as a lover or a friend. Charlotte was extolled as a 
paragon of virtue and of beauty by the writers of her 
faith ; and the venom of party and of sect has natur- 
ally denied to her both beauty and virtue. But she 
was certainly a woman of earnest convictions, of fine 
character, and of resolute temper. The preachers 
and refugees who had long known her were in con- 
stant relations with William; and from them he 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 229 

might gain a complete insight into the qualities of 
one who was now a mature woman, of wide experi- 
ence, and of strong nature. William then convinced 
himself that his life and work would grow all the 
stronger if he had beside him the grace and support of 
a woman worthy of him. He believed that in 
Charlotte he had found her. And a wedlock of entire 
happiness proved that his foresight was not a delu- 
sion. As the good John wrote in 1580 — 

It was a great support to his brother that God had given him 
a wife so virtuous, so God-fearing, and of sucli higli intelli- 
gence {soldi tugentsam, goisfurchiig, hochverstendige gemael) , 
one so entirely after his own heart and mind. He tenderly 
loves her. 

In the spring of 1575 the Prince sent various 
emissaries to propose marriage in his name to 
Charlotte de Bourbon, and to the Elector Palatine, 
her guardian. The Elector duly laid the offer before 
the King and Queen of France as head of the lady's 
house, and the Duke of Montpensier, her father. 
These declined to interfere, as Charlotte herself had 
abandoned her family and her religion. She de- 
clared that she regarded the Elector as her father, and 
would receive his direction. William next obtained 
certified copies of the legal inquiry made by the 
Count of l^assau into the adultery and desertion of 
Anne. The Prince then sent Hohenlohe, his brother- 



230 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

in-law, with instructions to propose the marriage in 
form, and to arrange with his brother John for the 
bride's journey through Germany to Holland. 

The envoy was to give ample explanation to the 
lady and to her guardian. He would first state the 
facts as to the Prince's marriage with Anne ; next, it 
must be understood that he could give no dower out 
of his estates, but he would do the best he could here- 
after. He was involved in a state of war, deeply in 
debt, and forty-two years old. The good John of 
^KTassau was greatly alarmed as well as scandalised, 
and wrote vehement letters of remonstrance. So too 
did William of Hesse, who bluntly said that William 
must be out of his mind (vix compos). The Land- 
grave distinguished himself by the violence of his 
language, which had a way of running into Cicero- 
nian Latin. 8i pietatem respicias,^ She is a renegade 
nun with whom scandal is rife ! Si formam. She is 
simply frightful ! 8i spem prolis. Why, the Prince 
has too many children already! 81 amicitiam. He 
will set every one against him, including his own 
family and hers ! 

Without a word in reply, William sent Ste. Alde- 
gonde to Heidelberg to fetch his bride. She was safely 
escorted with a proper retinue through Germany to 

* " If you look for piety ... if for beauty ... if for hope 
of progeny ... if for friendship .... 



REQUEISENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 231 

Embden, and thence by sea was brought to Brill, 
where she was honorably received with much rejoic- 
ing. Banns of marriage were published in church on 
three Sundays. A formal act was drawn up and 
signed by five eminent Protestant ministers, who, 
having considered the condemnation of Anne of 
Saxony, declared the Prince free to marry by human 
and divine law. The next day, 12th June 1575, Will- 
iam and Charlotte were married with ample cere- 
mony, and public festivities. Charlotte wrote a 
graceful and very dutiful letter to her new mother, 
the aged Countess Juliana, ma hie?! aimee merejf 
and soon after William wrote a characteristic letter to 
his brother John. 

My brother — It has been my rule, ever since God vouchsafed 
me any understanding, to take no heed of words or of threats, 
in any matter which I felt able to carry through with a whole 
conscience, where I was doing no wrong to my neighbor, 
above all where I had assurance of a lawful call and the ex- 
press ordinance of God. And truly, if I had chosen to take 
account of the talk of men, the threats of princes, and such 
difficulties as stood before me, I never should have plunged 
myself into a struggle so dangerous and so odious to the King, 
my former lord, and so contrary to tlie counsels of my friends 
and relations. But when I found that neither my humble 
prayers nor supplications and plaints availed me ought, I re- 
solved with the grace and aid of the Lord to take up this war, 
whereof I do not repent, but rather render thanks to God that 
of His mercy He has giv^en me the heart to bear up against all 
evils that beset me. however great. 

I *• }lj very dear wpth^r." 



232 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

I say the same of my marriage : a step I have taken with a 
clear conscience before God, and without cause of reproach 
f lom men. Nay, it is by the command of God that I am 
bound to do it. I have acted with ample deliberation and due 
notice. As to the objections and difficulties alleged, I have 
fully thought over them ; they would not be lessened by de- 
lay. On the contrary, delay would have aroused a storm of 
scandal and attack. All this has been avoided by the simple 
and rapid course of action I have taken. And when one is 
resolved on anything with a clear conscience void of offence 
towards anj^ one, it is best to act at once, and not to go about 
with a trumpet as it were, and invite odious disputes, wrang- 
lings, and legal obstruction. All the difficulties as to future 
children have been met by a full statement of my purpose as 
far as this can be foreseen, and I trust that God will give me 
His blessing on this marriage. Why then should I consign 
myself to the estate of widower to which I have been so long 
condemned ? It is idle to tell me that by prayer and effort I 
could maintain yet longer the grace of continence, without 
resorting to marriage. I have received no such assurance, 
but rather am reminded of the promise which He makes to 
those who rightly accept His ordinance. This I am firmly 
convinced is the sure path to follow, not only for the sake of 
myself, but that of the general cause. 

In the end this proved to be true. The marriage, 
whatever Ave think of its lawfulness, brought ultimate 
good to William, to his family, and to his cause. 
Much was said of its irregular form, of its extraordi- 
nary imprudence, and the high-handed way in which 
it was carried out. The German Protestants, since 
the monk Luther had married a nun, and had author- 
ised the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, could not say 
much. The opposition of the princes, Catholic and 



REQUESENS—LEYDEN— THIRD MARRIAGE. 233 

Protestant, at last died down. The Princess was 
warmly supported by her own Protestant relations, 
and ultimately reconciled to her father and to the 
Catholic princes of her house. Charlotte won the 
affection and confidence of William's children and of 
his family. The pecuniary difficulties were sur- 
mounted ; and the Princess of Orange was soon recog- 
nised in her adopted country as the honored wife of 
the Prince of Orange — in the true sense '' an help 
meet for him." In the next year a daughter was born 
to them, who is the direct ancestress of the House of 
Hanover, and of nearly all the royal houses of Europe 
(see App. A). 

The irregularity of form is plain. But it must not 
be forgotten that, within a generation of the Protest- 
ant Reformation, whilst Protestants fully recognised 
the principle of divorce, they had yet not instituted 
any regular system of matrimonial law. They had 
repudiated the Papal authority and the sacramental 
character of marriage, but had adopted no procedure 
for its legal dissolution. If they had done so it is not 
very clear what would have been the proper course. 
William claimed the status of a ruling prince in three 
countries and in three capacities, as Prince of 
Orange, as Count of I^assau, and as Stadtholder in 
Holland with sovereign power. It might be a curious 
puzzle to determine to what tribunal, if to any, his 



234: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

personal status was amenable, even by the refined and 
complex rules of international law as now understood. 
The Princes of Nassau claimed the right to try and 
put to death an adulterous wife. The trial and pun- 
ishment of Anne of Saxony was informal, private, 
and arbitrary. It was so done to avoid scandal and 
to save the honor of the House of Saxony. But for 
this her marriage would have been dissolved in a 
formal way; but this formality was never effected. 
Accordingly William rested satisfied with the public 
sentence pronounced by the five divines, based on the 
sentence of the ISTassau private court. And this satis- 
fied the public opinion of the people of his adoption. 
Those who are not satisfied are bound to regard Queen 
Elizabeth of England as a bastard. Eor the second 
marriage of Henry VIII. was much more irregular 
and arbitrary; and Catherine of Aragon had not 
deserted, defied, and dishonored her husband, nor was 
she insane, an outcast, and imprisoned for life. Will- 
iam, indeed, did not rest this act on legal technicali- 
ties, but on substantial right and wrong. His tone 
was this, " My legal wife is to me dead ; the only 
ecclesiastical authority I recognise pronounces me 
free; the attacks and threats of men do not disturb 
me. I am acting according to a clear conscience, and 
am doing hurt to no man. For my conduct I will 
answer to my Maker,'' 



CHAPTEK X. 

DOIT JOHIT GENERAL UlflOK APOGEE. 

1576-1578. - 

We now come to the most crowded and most vic- 
torious epoch in the life of William, an epoch of such 
varied complications that the main results only can 
be stated in our space. Just before his marriage the 
union between Holland and Zeeland was provisionally 
concluded, and the Prince assumed what was prac- 
tically supreme command, both military and civil. 
He insisted on certain modifications to give him a 
free hand, and he changed the suppression of ^' the 
Catholic cult," which they desired, into the suppres- 
sion of any ^^ worship contrary to the Gospel," under 
which vague phrase he trusted to resist the intolerance 
of the Calvinists. 

By the middle of July 1575 all prospect of negoti- 
ation had ceased, and the Spaniards renewed the war 
with vigor. William was quite prepared for this. In 
an intimate letter to his brother John (who had begun 

235 



236 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

to look for some repayment of all his advances), lie 
gives a pathetic picture of their forlorn state and 
their unbroken resolution. 

It is idle to ask for payment from us of sums advanced. 
This little corner of land has been crushed down by the cost of 
making head alone against the most mighty princes of Europe ; 
for it has had to fight terrible armies launched against it from 
all parts of the world, armies which are being daily reinforced, 
whilst for four or five years no prince has given us the slight- 
est aid, for all that some of them profess a burning zeal for 
our religion of Christ. None have helped us save the Count 
Palatine, you and my three other brothers, who have freely 
given their substance and their lives in this just cause. Yet 
withal, now that peace is hopeless and the forces of the enemy 
daily increase, we must all strive with might and main to 
make face against him by every means in our po%ver. This 
every man here is resolved to do as thoroughly as ever he was 
at any time before. 

The campaign did not open well for the cause. 
Spain now had 50,000 foot and 5000 horse, and one 
after another the weak defences of the Dutch citizens 
were beaten down. '^ They stormed Oudewater,'' 
writes William to his brother, " and delivered it over 
to all imaginable cruelties, sparing neither sex nor 
age." l^ext Schoonhoven fell into their hands, and 
they laid siege to Woerden. Thence, by a magnificent 
stroke of energy and daring, they planted themselves 
in the heart of Zeeland. Starting from the island of 
Tholen, which had been won by Mondr agon's wonder- 
ful night march through the sea, they repeated the 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 237 

exploit of 1572, under even greater difficulties and in 
face of a brave enemy. Under the eyes of Requesens 
a body of 3000 men forced their way in a dark and 
wild night through an arm of the sea, many miles 
wide and 5 feet deep, into the island of Duiveland, 
where a terrible combat ensued, in which the Dutch 
commander was killed and the garrison overpowered. 
From Duiveland these invincible veterans waded 
across a second arm of the sea, drove off the defenders 
of the island of Schouwen, captured Bommenede, 
butchered its inhabitants, and laid close siege to the 
strong city of Zierickzee. Zierickzee, after a long 
siege, again fell into the hands of Spain, and with it 
fell the gallant Boisot. Woerden followed about the 
same time. Thus in a short campaign the Royalists 
had planted themselves on the sea shore, and had 
drawn a belt from thence to the Rhine round Rotter- 
dam, Delft, and Leyden. 

In this extremity William summoned the States of 
Holland and Zeeland to Rotterdam, and told them 
that they must now yield, unless they could find some 
sovereign to protect them in place of Philip. In spite 
of their hesitation he forced this upon them. Though 
he would prefer to look to France, the deputies de- 
cided to apply to Elizabeth of England. As before, 
as afterwards, Elizabeth dallied and delayed. She 
wiblied the struggle to go on ; she wished neither King 



238 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

nor Estates to be victorious ; she wished both to look 
to her for help. Her prudence Avould not allow her 
to accept the protectorate: but it equally impelled 
her to allow none others to accept it ; she feared alike 
the bigotry of Philip and the turbulence of Calvin- 
ism. All this William perfectly understood; but he 
carried out the desires of the States by again ap- 
pealing to the Queen. In the meantime he is writing 
to his brother imploring him to seek for aid in Ger- 
many. It is at this time that vague and inconsistent 
rumors describe the Prince as about to withdraw 
across the seas, and seek a country elsewhere. His 
private letters and his public utterances betray not a 
thought of the kind. They breathe nothing but 
unconquered resolution. Now, indeed, his fortunes 
touched their lowest ebb; and his secretary writes to 
John that the Prince is " so overwhelmed with busi- 
ness, griefs, cares, and toils, that from morning to 
night he has hardly time to breathe." 

From the depths of distress, they were raised up 
by the confusion and atrocities of the Spanish power. 
The Grand Commander, Requesens, died suddenly in 
the spring of 1576, leaving no successor: and govern- 
ment at once fell into disorder. The interim Council 
poured out to the King reports of their difficulties : of 
want of funds, of mutiny, and riot. " The license of 
the troops of all nations is intolerable, and is due to 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 2S9 

stoppage of their pay/' wrote one report ; ^^ let the 
King immediately send out a Viceroy charged with a 
policy." Philip as usual hesitated and drifted. In 
the meantime, William was acting. The Union of 
Delft (25th April 1576) made regular and definitive 
the federation of the two provinces of Holland and 
Zeeland on the terms previously settled. This crucial 
act — the formal nucleus of the United ^Netherlands — 
bound the two sea-board Provinces into a permanent 
Union, constituted the Prince supreme authority in 
war and sovereign ad interim, and authorised him to 
treat with foreign princes for a protectorate. This 
clause he had himself forced on the unwilling dep- 
uties who had come to regard him as their real 'pate7' 
patriae, ^^ the Father of the Country " he was now 
called. He was to uphold the reformed religion and 
put down any worship ^' contrary to the Gospel," 
whatever that might mean, ^^ but no inquisition was 
to be permitted into any man's faith or conscience, 
nor should any man be troubled, injured, or hindered 
by reason thereof." 

This Union, although the germ of a great power to 
come, held as yet but a mere strip of reclaimed sea- 
swamp, barely 100 miles in length and nowhere 30 
miles in breadth, containing only a few small towns, 
and pierced by a Spanish stronghold in its midst. I^o 
one knew its weakness better than the Prince, who, 



ij40 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

seeing the exasperation caused by the mutinous troops 
of the King and the confusion of his councils, 
strained every nerve to extend the new Union to the 
other Provinces. He sent forth from his post at Mid- 
delburg a torrent of appeals to the Estates of Brabant, 
Flanders, Artois, Hainault, and Guelderland, to gov- 
ernors, magistrates, corporations, and influential citi- 
zens, to rouse them to resistance, and urge them to 
union. For each province or person he appealed to 
the special motives which would most keenly be felt. 
These letters are masterpieces of eloquence, reason, 
and policy. 

He told the men of Brabant how the scaffold of Egmont 
and Horn would be far too good for them to expect. Torture 
and the gallows would be their only lot if they fell into the 
hands of Philip. It was not his aim to disturb religion or to 
introduce any novelties. To free the country from the tyranny 
of the foreigner , and to set up again their old constitutional 
rights, was their sole end and hope. Disunion had been their 
ruin. Union alone could save them. Let all minor differ- 
ences be referred to the States-General to settle. Let them 
put aside jealousies and distrust, and work with one heart and 
mind for the freedom of their common country and the cause 
to which he and his had dedicated their lives. 

These appeals were greatly aided by the horrible 
excesses of the troops and the anarchy that was now 
rampant throughout the military and civil adminis- 
tration of Spain. The capture of Zierickzee was fol- 
lowed by a mutiny ; and mutiny was followed by wild 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 241 

raids, storming of towns, and general confusion, in 
the midst of whicli Brussels and other cities over- 
threw the royal councils. A conference of the States- 
General was hastily summoned. To them the Prince 
addressed a collective appeal. For any success in this 
he saw that the question of religion must be ad- 
journed, and he boldly addresses them as Catholic 
patriots. 

'• Do not be beguiled," he writes, " by the superstitious idea 
that loyalty involves a servile prostration to every wish of a 
king, who is most ill-informed as to all that is done in his 
name. Our sufferings are the result of discord. Disunion — 
this accursed disunion (ceste maudit desunion) — has ever been 
the direct cause of the ruin of nations in all ages— in France, 
Italy, Germany, Hungary, or in Africa and Barbary, which 
is given over by it to the fury of the Turk. Your only 
hope is to send a joint and formal document to the King to 
tell him that it is your firm resolve to maintain the ancient 
rights of your country, and free it from the insupportable 
tyranny of the Spaniards, but to remain subject to the lawful 
sovereignty of His Majesty. Have tliis document signed by 
all the Estates and the principal conventual orders, and by 
persons of authority and credit in tbe land. An act such as 
this will tear off all the wretclied disguises and subterfuges 
which paralyse action. We need a confederation M^hich shall 
work together to one end, cemented by some compact in 
solemn form, as the ancients did with oaths and sacrifices, 
and as our ancestors have often done now for tliree centuries 
past. Let the King see that this is no revolt stirred up by 
men of influence, as he fancies, (he said to me, si los estados 
no fuviefisen pilares. no hdhlarian tan alto) — but that it is the 
general voice of an entire people, of the commons as well as 
the cliiefs, of prelates, abbots, monks, lords, gentlemen, citi- 
zens, and peasants, who, without difference of age, sex, or 
16 



242 "WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

condition, call aloud with one voice for justice. Let him 
know that if he refuses it, you will throw yourselves into the 
arms of the ancient enemy of his house. A faggot bound to- 
gether cannot be broken as easily as single sticks. You see 
what we of Holland and Zealand have been able to do in 
five years. We are here to help you. But rest assured that 
neither the princes of Germany, nor the gentlemen of France, 
nor the Queen of England, nor any potentate of Christendom, 
much as they may deplore your sufferings, will ever help you, 
unless you help yourselves." . . . 

Stirred by these appeals and by the military orgies 
around them, the fifteen Provinces now sent delegates 
to meet those of Holland, Zeeland, and the Prince at 
Ghent. William remained at Middelburg in practical 
guidance of the conference, for whose use he sent a 
memorandum of instructions, warnings, and politic 
suggestions. Within a month there was drawTi up 
and signed (8th November 1576) the Pacification of 
Ghent. By this treaty the whole seventeen Provinces 
bound themselves in a solemn league to expel the 
Spaniards, and the ultimate settlement of all ques- 
tions was to rest with the States-General when that 
was done. In the meantime the Prince was to retain 
supreme command in war and act as lieutenant for 
His Majesty. The Provinces would decide on their 
own religion ; but Holland and Zeeland were not to 
forbid Catholic rites, and private reformed rites were 
to be allowed in all Catholic provinces. The odious 
edicts against heresy were suspended. Prisoners, 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 243 

confiscations, and outlawries were released. Finan- 
cial and administrative questions were left for tlie 
States-General to settle. 

This famous " Pacification '' was received on all 
sides, as the Apology declares, w^th shouts of joy and 
relief ; and for a moment it seemed as if the long w^ork 
of William and his Dutch patriots was achieved. For 
a brief period the union seemed to be complete. A 
treaty called the ^' Perpetual Edict '^ was signed a 
few months afterguards, which ratified the '^ Pacifica- 
tion," and was based on a certain Union of Brussels, 
wherein Catholic and loyalist personages concurred 
in the national demand for withdrawal of Spanish 
troops and maintenance of the old charters. The 
" Pacification " was undoubtedly the first effort to- 
wards a free and united ^Netherlands, and was the 
basis of all the subsequent federations and unions. It 
was a masterpiece of diplomatic ingenuity and judici- 
ous compromise. But nations are not made nor are 
they maintained by ingenuity and compromise. It 
was in substance a patriotic League between Catholic 
and Protestant states, to expel the Spanish troops of 
the Spanish King whom they acknowledged as their 
lord. But the Spanish troops were still there, in pos- 
session of all the great fortresses in the land. And 
the " Pacification " added little to the military re- 
sources of the country. The ^^ Pacification " had 



244 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

studiously avoided the problem of religion. But the 
problem of religion was there in its bitterest form. 
Holland and Zeeland were saturated with Calvinism, 
and could hardly be held back by the Prince from 
exterminating the Catholic faith. The majority in 
the other Provinces were Catholic, and could hardly 
force themselves to act side by side with heretics. 

The terrific persecution which had now persisted 
for ten years had practically crushed out Protest- 
antism in most of the Southern Provinces. The 
ferocious bigotry of the Calvinists and the atrocities 
committed by some wild leaders on their side had 
created a deep and widespread Catholic reaction. The 
orgies of the mutinous soldiers had combined Catholic 
and Protestant, rich and poor, in a common loathing 
for the foreigner. Of this William took advantage in 
his masterly scheme of a general league. But no man 
could know better on how slender a basis it rested, and 
how little it could promise a permanent settlement. 
Yet he wrote to John full of hope and confidence, and 
he never grasped fully the depth and fierceness of the 
religious animosities in the midst of which he had to 
work. 

This brief Life of William of Orange is not the 
place wherein to rehearse again the enormities of the 
Spanish mutinies — how troops who for ten years had 
been gorged with the massacre and plunder of "rebel'' 




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DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 245 

towns and provinces turned savagely on their own 
officers and rulers, and proceeded to slaughter the 
loyal subjects of their King, and to sack the very 
cities which they were stationed to guard. The 
'' Spanish Fury,'' which wrecked Antwerp and butch- 
ered its inhabitants by thousands, is in many ways the 
most horrible frenzy in this war of horrors. The 
atrocities committed at Mechlin, I^aarden, or Haar- 
lem were committed in a captured city by a victorioas 
army. The atrocities in Antwerp were the wanton 
outburst in cold blood of the garrison of a peaceful 
city — an orgy of lust, greed, and savagery. It sent 
through the whole E^etherlands such a thrill of horror 
and dread as sufficed for a short space to override the 
innate antagonism of race, language, religion, and 
traditions. 

The Prince had pressed on the Pacification of 
Ghent because he had long known of the fresh danger 
that threatened them in the person of the new Vice- 
roy. Philip at last made up his mind to send out as 
governor his half-brother, the paladin Don John of 
Austria, natural son of the late Emperor, just fresh 
from the halo of his victory over the Turks at Lepan- 
td.* This brilliant, fascinating knight-errant of 

* The battle of Lepanto was fought off the western coast of 
Greece, near the entrance to the gulf of Lepanto, or Corinth, 
October 7, 1571. Don John of Austria commanded the com- 
bined fleets of Spain, Venice and the papal galleys against the 



246 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

romance, now in his thirtietli year, with his chival- 
rous bearing and glory of crusader, was exactly the 
man to revive the loyal and Catholic traditions of the 
men of Flanders and Brabant. But, for all his heroic 
and gracious airs, he was not the man to match Will- 
iam the Silent in policy and resolution. He arrived 
at Luxemburg just as the Pacification was signed; 
and for two years a long and subtle diplomatic duel 
was waged between the Prince and the Viceroy, 
wherein step by step the adventurous chieftain found 
himself paralysed by the astute and sleepless states- 
man. 

The involutions of this negotiation are far too com- 
plex to be here set forth. The task before William 
was both intricate and delicate. Don John came with 
all the air of a royal mediator to announce the clem- 
ency of a lawful sovereign bent on closing the era of 
strife. To the nobles and citizens, as to William and 
other authorities, he showed nothing but friendship 
and grace. Orange could not venture to denounce 
such overtures in States to which he himself had just 
appealed as Catholic and loyal. But he well knew 
that to trust these overtures would be to deliver them- 
selves bound to the incurable perfidy of Philip and 

fleet of the Turks. The Turks lost 30.000 men, killed or taken 
prisoners, 12,000 Christian slaves were liberated, and 130 ves- 
sels were captured. The C'lristians lost 8,000 men and fifteen 
galleys. 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 247 

the dispensing supremacy of the Pope. Whetlier Don 
John himself was sincere or not was of small im- 
portance. He was nothing but the tool of his false 
brother, who could thrust him aside or disown him at 
will. His own brain was teeming with wild ambition, 
desperate adventures, and personal triumphs to be 
won in distant lands and by the aid of royal women. 
All William's policy was direct-ed to prevent the men 
of Flanders from yielding themselves up to the fas- 
cinations and promises of the young hero, to force on 
him larger and larger concessions, and, after all, to 
confront him with demands which the Viceroy dared 
neither to refuse nor to grant. 

William's first efforts were to induce the States to 
seize the person of Don John as a hostage, and, failing 
in this, to regard all his overtures as false, and his real 
mission the same as that of Alva. To the States 
separately and collectively, to the leading men and 
councillors, he poured out a torrent of despatches in 
moving terms. He urges them to insist specially on 
two points, the entire withdrawal of the foreign troops 
and the ratification by the Viceroy of the Pacifica- 
tion. All this had to be done with extreme reserve 
and skill, for he could not treat Don John as an open 
enemy or drive the Estates into his arms. At the same 
time he is negotiating in France to bring in the Duke 
of Anjou, brother of the French king, as a counter- 



218 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

poise to the Imperial bastard. Don John, who medi- 
tated an attack on Elizabeth and his own marriage 
with Mary Queen of Scots, was quite willing to send 
away the foreign troops by sea ; and at last he yielded 
point after point, and even accepted the Pacification 
of Ghent by a hollow truce, ill-named the Perpetual 
Edict. 

Orange, in reply, redoubled his warnings that this 
paper-concession was not enough, as there were no 
guarantees for the withdrawal of the troops and the 
demolition of the citadels. Don John, on his side, was 
quite aware that he had gained nothing until he had 
gained the Prince. ^' He is the pilot who steers the 
ship ; he alone can '\\Teck it or save it," Don John 
wrote to Philip. '^ Peace, the Catholic religion, your 
Majesty's rule, can only be established through him ; 
we must make a virtue of necessity and come to t^rms 
with him, if we are not to lose all." '^ I see no other 
way to prevent the ruin of the State but the defeat of 
this man, who exerts such an influence over the 
nation." Don John sent again the indefatigable 
Leoninus to the Prince, who declined to be drawn 
from his fastness at Middelburg. Long, subtle, politic 
conferences ensued. The Prince was courteous, wary, 
firm, and even frank. He could not trust the Viceroy, 
he said, after all that had been done; he must take 
counsel with Holland and Zeeland ; he could give no 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 249 

hope of coming to terms. Don John still pressed the 
King to give further concessions. Philip even ratified 
(on paper) the Perpetual Edict, and Don John with- 
drew the Spanish troops, and thereupon was admitted 
into Brussels, where he formally assumed the govern- 
ment with great pomp. 

He knew how hollow was his hold on power. " The 
people here," he wrote to Philip, '^ are bewitched by 
the Prince ; they love him, they fear him, they desire 
him for their lord. They inform him of everything, 
and take no step but by his advice." ^^ That which 
the Prince most abhors in the world," wrote Don 
John bluntly, " is your Majesty." '^ If he could, he 
would drink your Majesty's blood." Don John was 
in despair as he found himself in the toils of a con- 
summate tactician. The Prince with his own hand 
replied to a letter of Don John by a stately missive 
still at Simancas. ^'Let his Highness rest assured that 
his one object was to restore peace to the poor people 
of this land. For this there was wanting only the 
effectual carrying out of the Pacification of Ghent." 
To one of Don John's emissaries he said, ^^ The 
people form a stable force ; the will of a king is ever 
changing." To another he said, ^^ You are staking 
your own head by trusting the King. ^JsTever will I so 
stake mine, for he has deceived me too often. His 



250 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

favorite maxim is, haereticis non est servanda fides.* 
I am now bald and Calvinist (calbo y calbanista — ^the 
extant Spanish despatch has it), and in that faith will 
I die." 

Baffled, weary, despairing, Don John withdrew 
from Brussels after a few weeks, and returned to a 
policy of force. He treacherously seized the fortress 
of ^amur. William bruited abroad that Don John's 
intercepted letters told Philip that nothing now re- 
mained but fire and slaughter (seulement avecque feu 
et sang are the words as reported in the letter of the 
Prince's secretary). Don John learned that there 
were plots to seize, even to assassinate him ; and he 
believed that the Prince was cognisant of them. Con- 
fusion reigned throughout the Southern Provinces ; 
and under the incessant instigations of the Prince, the 
very appearance of authority was slipping away from 
the King's people. The Pacification of Ghent had 
been folloAved by the second abandonment of Zierick- 
zee by Mondragon, and the Spaniards again lost their 
last hold in Zeeland. Breda was recovered to the 
Prince; Utrecht, Haarlem, Amsterdam, before long 
accepted his terms. And Antwerp and Ghent demol- 
ished their citadels. William was now established in 
full command of the northern land, from the mouth 

* It is not necessary to keep faith with heretics. 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION-APOGEE. 251 

of the Scheldt to the Zuider Zee, and had predomi- 
nant influence in Flanders and Brabant. 

This was the apogee of William's ascendency in the 
whole E'etherland country, and it was visibly ex- 
pressed in his famous entry in state into Brussels 
(September 157Y). Don John had at last yielded ail 
the demands of the States, and these, if honestly ful- 
filled, were ample securities of peace. But they were 
only the promises of a Spanish viceroy, and Orange 
was resolved that they should not be taken as deeds. 
At last, after long preparations and with great precau- 
tions, he accepted the urgent invitations he had been 
receiving to enter Brussels. His progress was that of 
a State ceremony. Gruarded by a strong force of 
armed citizens, he passed to Antwerp, and thence with 
a powerful escort by water into Brussels, where he 
was received with royal honors and prolonged festivi- 
ties. The ^^ rebel " chief, who for ten vears had car- 
ried on unequal war with the whole might of Philip, 
was now welcomed with acclamations in the capital of 
the l^etherlands, which Philip's nominal Viceroy had 
just abandoned in impotent despair. 

Long conferences took place: should Don John's 
terms be accepted or not ? William, using all his 
energy and eloquence, induced them to insist on 
further conditions, which Don John could not accept, 
and all prospect of avoiding fresh war came to an end. 



252 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

In his own day, and ever since, the responsibility of 
this act has been cast on the Prince, and undoubtedly 
the rupture was wholly and solely his work. The 
justification for it must turn on whether his con- 
viction was sound, that no promise of Philip's ever 
could be trusted. As a matter of fact, Philip had 
already ordered his troops to return to the I^ether- 
lands ; and Don John at once felt that again he was a 
victorious soldier, and no longer a helpless politician. 
In the Apology we read: — 

The letters signed by the King's hand, sealed with his arms, 
and countersigned, informed us tliat the only difference be- 
tween Don John, Alva, and Requesens was that he was 
younger and more foolish than they were, and was not so well 
skilled in concealing the poison within him, of glossing with 
his tongue, and restraining his hands, which tingled with de- 
sire to bathe them in our blood. 

William had received in Brussels a brilliant wel- 
come ; but he well knew all the perils of the hour. His 
loving wife wrote letter after letter, to warn him 
against assassination, and to ask if he could have free 
exercise of his religion. IN^ow, the Belgian Provinces 
in the main Avere Catholic, and to them William was 
an obstinate heretic and the chief of men sworn to 
uproot the Catholic faith. The great Belgian nobles 
were jealous of his ascendency, and for the most part 
hostile. The people were his ardent supporters, as 
against the Spanish tyranny; but the mass of them 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 253 

would neither tolerate Calvinism nor repudiate the 
Hapsburg dominion. Orange was hardly installed in 
Brussels when a Catholic intrigue brought upon the 
scene Matthias, an Austrian archduke, and brother of 
the new Emperor Eudolph, to be a counterpoise at 
once to William and to Don John. William, who 
neither originated nor approved this invitation, ac- 
cepted it with a good grace, welcomed the feeble lad, 
and continued to rule under his name. As a rejoinder, 
the partisans of Orange succeeded in having him ap- 
pointed Ruward, which was practically dictator of the 
interim, and they insisted on his being named Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, with the young Matthias as nominal 
Governor, and Don John was formally declared an 
enemy. Elizabeth now, in her dread of a French 
protector, veered round to the ^^ rebels,'' guaranteed a 
large loan, and openly supported the Prince. A sec- 
ond time the Prince made a State entry into Brussels, 
this time as the lieutenant and minister of the Arch- 
duke. John of Xassau was named Governor of 
Guelderland, and for the moment it seemed that tlie 
whole Xetherlands, Catholics and Reformers at last 
in one, were united to cast out the Spanish rule, with 
the Prince of Orange as their virtual ruler and chief. 
This fair prospect was shattered by a sudden stroke 
which Philip had long been preparing — ^by the arrival 
of a great soldier with a new army — a mightier than 



254: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Alva with a more powerful force. By the end of 
January 1578, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, 
reached Don John with a fresh body of troops from 
Italy and Spain. This other young hero of Lepanto 
was a son of Margaret of Parma by her second 
husband, Ottavio Parnese, of the Papal house. He 
was thus the nephew of Philip and of Don John, and, 
more than any other captain of his age, he combined 
an equal genius for intrigue and war. With an army 
of 20,000 veteran troops, he swooped down upon the 
ill-led army of the States at Gemblous,^^' near I^amur, 

* The name Gembloux was formerly written Gemblours. 

" The whole army [of the patriots] broke to pieces at once, 
and so great was the trepidation that the conquered troops 
had hardly courage to run away. They were utterly inca- 
pable of combat. Not a blow was struck by the fugitives. 
Hardly a man in the Spanish ranks was wounded, while in the 
course of an hour and a half the whole force of the enemy 
was exterminated. It is impossible to state with accuracy 
the exact numbers slain. Some accounts spoke of ten thou- 
sand killed, or captive, with absolutely no loss on the ro^yal 
side. Moreover, this slaughter was effected, not by the army 
under Don John, but by so small a fragment of it that some 
historians have even set down the whole number of roj'alists 
engaged at the commencement of the action at six hundred, 
increased afterward to twelve hundred. . .. The whole States' 
army was annihilated. Rarel}^ had a more brilliant exploit 
been performed by a handful of cavalry. To the distinguished 
Alexander of Parma, who improvised so striking and complete 
a victory out of a fortuitous circumstance, belonged the whole 
credit of the day, for his quick eye detected the passing weak- 
ness of the enemy, and turned it to terrible account, witli the 
promptness which conges from genius alone. A whole army 



DON JOHN-GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 255 

and utterly annihilated them, without loss to himself. 
In an hour he had shattered the whole military power 
of the Belgian States. City after city fell into the 
hands of Spain and expiated their rebellion in general 
massacre. Confusion and panic reigned in Brussels 
and throughout Brabant. William, with Matthias, 
withdrew to Antwerp ; and the combination which 
had cost such labors to establish was practically dis- 
solved. 

In this extremity the Prince, with feverish activity, 
carried on negotiations' with three different powers at 
once — Germany, England, and France. He soon 
found that Matthias was a mere puppet, and that his 
name would bring no real succor from the Empire. 
He equally convinced himself that no more help 
was to be expected from Elizabeth. And now, as 
always, he inclined to look towards France and was 
pressing on the overtures to Anjou, brother of the 
French king. It was an inextricable tangle, a vicious 
circle, in which every step involved a change of front, 
and each turn in the intricate game led to fresh equi- 
vocation. To make overtures to any one of the three 

was overthrown. Everything belonging to the enemy fell in- 
to the hands of the Spaniards. ... Of the captives, some 
were soon afterward hurled off the bridge at Namur, and 
drowned like dogs in the Meuse, while the rest were all 
hanged, none escaping with life. Don John's clemency was 
not superior to that of his sanguinary predecessors."— Motley, 
The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Part V. , chap. iv. 



256 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

powers was to irritate and alarm the other two. With- 
out sonic help from without William saw nothing 
but destruction before them. Every one of the pos- 
sible friends was a master of chicanery and deceit; 
whilst the great enemy was the very incarnation of 
perfidy. The maxim of all was that which the envoy 
of Elizabeth so naively wrote to his mistress — creti- 
sandum semper cum Cretense- — an art of which Eliza- 
beth herself was the greatest living adept. 

At length the Prince arranged a treaty between the 
States and the Duke of Anjou (August 1578), which 
made him *' defender of the liberty of the Nether- 
lands/' bound him to bring 10,000 foot and 2000 
horse to the cause, the States finding an equal number. 
The Duke was not to take part in the civil govern- 
ment, but was to have the first consideration if the 
sovereignty were changed. And he bound himself to 
an alliance with the arch-heretics, Elizabeth, Henry 
of ISTavarre, and Casimir, son of the Elector Palatine. 
Had this treaty been honestly observed, it might have 
been of decisive use. But it was too much to expect 
that a Valois would treat it as more than a bait. 

In the meantime Don John, humiliated, broken in 
spirit, and abandoned by all, was consumed with rage 

* The Cretans were proverbially "always linrs" (Titus i : 
12). This sentence may therefore he freely rendered : "It is 
always necessary to lie when dealing with liars." 



DON JOHN— GENERAL UNION— APOGEE. 257 

and fever. His piteous cries to Philip were unno- 
ticed. " Our lives are at stake/' he wrote, ^^ and all. 
we hope now is to lose them with honor.'' He wasted 
away for two months and died on 1st October, having 
just strength enough to name Alexander of Parma as 
his successor. This powerful and ruthless genius 
now enters on the field, and gathering up the com- 
plex threads of that most horrible imbroglio of force 
and fraud, he succeeded in beating to pieces the larger 
and ephemeral fabric of the Prince's work ; and, 
whilst he could not beat to pieces his stronger and per- 
manent work in the l^orthern Provinces, he struck 
down the Prince himself by the hand of a fanatical 

assassin. 
17 



CHAPTEE XI. 



DISCORD BAN ^APOLOGY. 



157Y-1580. 

The last years of William's life were years of al- 
most hopeless struggle to keep united the frail fabric 
of the seventeen Provinces of the ^Netherlands in pres- 
ence of a mighty and relentless foe. Vast labor and 
address had brought them together in a time of out- 
rageous oppression ; but they were perpetually torn 
asunder by religious hatreds, difference of race, of lan- 
guage, and tradition, by personal jealousies and 
party cabals. Modern history presents no story more 
pathetic than the energy, sagacity, ingenuity, and 
resolution with which the Prince faced the crisis. If 
it were ever given to political genius to ride the storm 
and to weld the incompatible, it might have succeeded 
even now. As it was, the larger scheme failed, but 
had an indirect result : the smaller had a permanent 
and glorious success. 

258 



DISCOKD— BAN— APOLOGY. 259 

The elements of confusion were these. The Prot- 
estants of the ]^orthern Provinces, in Ghent and 
some other Belgian cities, were seething with fana- 
tical intolerance, and prone to rush into persecution 
themselves. The Catholic Provinces of the South, 
and especially the official and noble class, however 
hostile they might be to Spanish oppression, clung to 
the ascendency of their ancient Church. The Bel- 
gian nobles, with the Duke of Aerschot at their head, 
were secretly jealous of the Prince's authority ; they 
hated his Calvinism ; they feared his alliance witb 
the people. The people were the only element where 
he could find support, or which he could rouse to en- 
thusiasm. And the people of the cities, both Nortb 
and South, Protestant or Catholic, were constantly a 
prey to unscrupulous demagogues or foreign adven- 
turers. The Catholic nobles by a secret intrigue 
brought in the young Archduke Matthias, brother of 
the Emperor, as a rival at once of Don John and the 
Prince. The Southern Catholic cities again brought 
in the Duke of Anjou, brother of the French King, 
for the same purpose. And the Calvinists on their 
side brought in John Casimir, son of the Puritan 
Elector Palatine. Thev were all mischievous and 
selfish schemers, without capacity or influence — the 
Archduke and Anjou without courage or character of 
any kind. Each of these rivals in turn was courte- 



260 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

ously welcomed by the Prince, who made them his 
puppets, checkmated their schemes, used them for his 
own ends, and politely induced them to withdraw. 

Down to the successes of the terrible Prince of 
Parma, the popularity of Orange with the burghers 
amounted to extravagance. ^' They love him, they 
fear him, they want to make him their master," wrote 
Don John to Philip. '' The people believe in no god 
but in him," wrote Renon de France. " They wel- 
come him as the Jews would their Messiah," wrote 
another Royalist. The public entries of the Prince 
into Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent were triumphal 
processions, wherein men and women flung themselves 
on their knees before him, and the citizens formed 
voluntary guards of honor around him, and stood sen- 
tinel day and night at the door of his abode. 

This popular effervescence was only a part of the 
general excitement. The violence of the reformers 
was answered by reaction amongst the Catholics. In 
Holland the Calvinists instituted persecution of 
priests and papists. In each city the local bodies, 
swayed from side to side by demagogues and parti- 
sans, acted independently and fell into arbitrary dis- 
order. " There was nothing," writes the Dutch his- 
torian, " but dissensions, jealousies, heart-burnings, 
hatred ; every one claimed to rule, no one would 
obey." Dutch, German, Walloon, and Fleming were 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 261 

in fierce antagonism. The ]^ortliem Provinces 
tended to a republic. Burgher juntos gave orders on 
military affairs to their own captains, or sullenly re- 
fused to admit garrisons to defend them from Spain. 
From Brussels Ste. Aldegonde writes that the cause 
of true religion is strangely hated and suspected every- 
where, and '^ it seems that they would rather be 
ruined without us than saved with us" (quils ayment 
mieulx se perdre sans nous, que de se sauver avecque 
nous). Again he writes to the Prince — " The mal- 
ady is deeper than I had supposed " — '' I find here 
dire confusion in everything " — ^' On our side there 
is neither order, nor money, nor content " — " Unless 
your Excellency comes, we are certainly lost." 

Well might honest John write to the Landgrave : 
'^ There is gross negligence, rivalry, avarice, and stu- 
pidity (grosze negligentia, aemulatio, geitz, und un- 
verstand), and great hatred of our evangelical relig- 
ion ; " '^ Civil war is inevitable : I find few patriots 
but many priests, raw young gentlemen, and paid 
officials, greedy of money and advancement, and not 
a few of them cowardly and spiritless as well." The 
Landgrave, with his biting way and Ciceronian tags, 
might well write to John complaining of privata odia 
et simuUates.* All that had been done by Alva was 
but praeludia to the horrors that were to follow — 
* Private grudges and animosities. 



262 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

omne regnum inter se divisum desolahitur.^ ^' It was 
all a queer olla podrida \_ein seltzamb olio putrido "] ; 
" it was a mere confusum chaos/' And the French 
Protestant historian writes : ^' Res Belgicae in im- 
mensum chaos abire videntur/^ f 

It was but too true. And around this whirlpool 
stood hostile and self-interested powers. The Ger- 
man princes hated Catholics and Calvinists alike. 
The Landgrave was caustic and suspicious ; the Elec- 
tor of Saxony was angry and contemptuous ; John of 
Nassau was honest but wooden. Germany, France, 
and England would take no part themselves, but they 
jealously counter-intrigued against each other. Eliz- 
abeth changed her tactics from hour to hour ; Anjou 
and the Yalois dreamed of a dominion for themselves. 
And in front of them all stood the Prince of Parma, 
with his fierce veterans, his wiles, and his gold, the 
incarnation of Spanish chivalry and Machiavellian 
craft. 

The revolutionary outbreak of Ghent (October 
157Y) was most disastrous in its results, and one of 
those acts of the Prince which it is most difficult to 
justify. Two nobles of Flanders, demagogues of un- 
scrupulous ambition and bad character, de Ryhove 

* See Matthew xii. 25. " Every kingdom divided against 
itself is brought to desolation." 
f Belgium was seen to plunge into a great chaos. 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 268 

and de Hembyze, at the head of their reforming par- 
tisans, seized and imprisoned the Duke of Aerschot, 
the Governor of Flanders, and several other men of 
rank and authority. The Duke was undoubtedly the 
leader of a cabal formed to overthrow the Prince and 
to suppress the democratic and Protestant movement 
in Flanders. There can be no doubt that the agita- 
tors had the secret sanction of the Prince, who disa- 
vowed their action at Brussels, but sent troops to their 
aid. He induced them to release the Duke after a 
few weeks' imprisonment, as being a mere weak fool ; 
and then he went himself to Ghent and established 
some order, practically placing de Hembyze and de 
Ryhove in power, but making no real effort to have 
the other reactionaries released. The democratic dic- 
tators soon established in Ghent a '' Calvinist tyran- 
ny." They sacked churches and monasteries, sup- 
pressed religious orders, and actually burnt alive 
several monks in the market-place by a Calvinist 
auto-da-fe* They then proceeded to extend this reign 

* "The Auto-da-fe (Portugaese, ' act of the faith ' ; Spanish, 
Auto-da-Fe) was the name given to the solemnity that from 
1481 used to take place in Spain and Portugal at the execution 
of heretics condemned to death by the Inquisition. . . . At 
dawn, the dismal tolling of the great bell of the church gave 
the signal to begin the drama of the day ; for as such it was 
looked upon by the people, who thronged to it in troops, be- 
lieving that they did a good work in merely looking on. Men 
of the highest rank reckoned it prudent to give their counte. 
jiance to the ' holy ' tril^unal at the§Q processions, and even 



264 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

of the Saints throughout Flanders. The efforts of the 
Prince to moderate their violence only succeeded in 

grandees of Castile did not disdain to make themselves famil- 
iars of the Inquisition. The procession was led by the Domi- 
nicans, carrying the flag of the Inquisition ; next followed the 
penitents, on whom only penance had been laid ; behind them, 
and separated by a great cross which was borne before, came 
those condemned to death — barefoot, clad in robes painted 
with hideous figures called the Sanbenito, and with a pointed 
cap on the head ; then, effigies of fugitives ; and lastly, the 
bones of dead culprits, in black coffins painted with flames and 
hellish symbols. The frightful train was closed by an army 
of priests and monks. The procession went through the prin- 
cipal streets to the church, w^iere, after a sermon on the true 
faith, the sentence was announced, the accused standing 
meantime before a crucifix w^ith extinguished torches in their 
hands. After the sentence had been read to them, an officer 
of the Inquisition gave each of the condemned a blow on the 
breast with his hand, as a sign that they were given over by 
that tribunal to the secular power ; on which a secular officer 
took them in charge, had them fettered, and taken to prison. 
A few hours afterwards they were brought to the place of ex- 
ecution. If they yet, at the last, made profession of the Cath- 
olic faith, they were so far favored as to be first strangled ; 
otherwise they w^ere burned alive, and with them the effigies 
and bones of the fugitive and dead culprits. As a rule, the 
king, along with his whole court, had to exalt by his presence 
the solemnity of the entire transaction." — Chambers's Encyc. 
This method of pious torture was invented by Torquemada 
and was freely used by Philip 11. , a vivid account of whose 
practices is given by Prescott, Philip 11. , Book II., chapter 
lii (vol. i, pp. 389-401). Among the Protestants there were 
isolated cases of persecution and judicial murder, the most 
notable of which was the burning of Servetus in Geneva. In 
such isolated cases they imitated their foes — the wonder is that 
they did not do it more — but no Pi'otestant sect ever had the 
auto-da-fe as an institution, 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 265 

turning the demagogues into his own worst enemies. 

For a time the energetic appeals and action of the 
Prince effected a temporary lull, but in the following 
year fresh disorders broke out. De Ryhove mur- 
dered two of the prisoners in cold blood ; and, under 
the incitement of de Hembyze and the unfrocked 
monk Peter Dathenus, the Protestant mobs sacked 
churches, expelled Catholics, and committed excesses, 
^' as if the whole city had gone mad." Again the 
Prince came to Ghent, and succeeded in establishing 
peace, and restoring the Catholics. A third out- 
break in the next year recalled him again to Ghent, 
where de Hembyze and Dathenus were denouncing 
him as a papist, a traitor, and an atheist. In a 
grand message he justified himself to the citizens, and 
appealed to their patriotism and good sense. A third 
time he came to Ghent ; de Hembyze and Peter, the 
incendiary monk, hid at his approach. Both were 
seized and dragged before him. He sternly rebuked 
them and sent them away unharmed. They fled to 
John Casimir ; and years afterwards de Ryhove 
caught de Hembyze in manifest treachery, and had 
him executed. Such were the elements of discord 
with which the Prince had to deal, and such were the 
men with whom he was forced to work. 

In the clash of these competing bigotries William 
of Orange strove to enforce mutual toleration by stir- 



266 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

ring appeals, by indignant rebuke, and by vigorous 
action. Time after time he drew up and obtained 
assent to a scheme of religious compromise or peace, 
on the basis of each party being free to exercise their 
own worship, subject to conditions to secure public 
order, and to avoid offence to their opponents. Both 
Catholic and Reformed communions were to have 
equal liberty, where either were in sufficient numbers 
to form a congregation, and were to have separate 
churches assigned to them. The rites, ornaments, 
and property of all religious bodies w^ere to be held 
free from interference, attack, or insult by word or 
deed. Open-air and tumultuous preaching was for- 
bidden, and everything which could invite strife or 
wound the conscience of believers in any creed. Will- 
iam now extended this toleration even to Anabap- 
tists, by which his Own chief agent was much scanda- 
lised. He obtained assent to a new " Union of Brus- 
sels," destined to prove so evanescent that it has almost 
escaped notice. By it Catholics and '^ Dissentients " 
bound themselves to protect and help each other on 
equal terms against the national foe. His project of 
A Religious Peace was formally accepted by many 
of the principal cities, but it soon appeared to give a 
new ground for discord. 

In his zeal for real and complete toleration of 
creed William of Orange was in advance of his age 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 267 

bj many centuries. And in this he stood absolutely 
alone. Some Catholics could be brought to abstain 
from persecuting heretics ; but none could be brought 
to surrender the exclusive prerogatives of their own 
Church. Calvinists clamored for protection and 
freedom, but they all used both as an engine to sup- 
press Catholicism. Catholics could only endure Pro- 
testant worship in private, and provided it did not 
menace the Church ; and in like manner Protestants, 
where they were in a clear majority, strove to get rid 
of the Church altogether, ^ot one of the best and 
ablest of the Prince's supporters had risen to his con- 
ception of mutual tolerance and respect for differing 
faiths. The good John of Nassau would not endure 
papistical rites in a Protestant province. Ste. Alde- 
gonde himself protested against the breadth of the 
Prince's charity. The zealots of all creeds held him 
to be a Gallio, if not a godless man at heart. To all, 
his suffering false belief to exist betrayed a secret 
proneness to it in himself. Xay, more ; the formal 
proclaiming of full religious freedom roused alarm 
in all : the Catholic saw in it the eventful triumph of 
heresy ; the Protestant saw in it the prelude to a new 
persecution. 

Thus the codification of a real " Religious Peace,*' 
coming on the top of the outrages at Ghent, actually 
conduced to fresh religious divergence. In the Wal- 



2G8 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

loon Provinces abutting on France, there arose a 
new party of ^' Malcontents '' — a Catholic revolt 
against the religious compromise or '^ Pacification of 
Ghent." By the Treaty of Arras (January 1579) 
the Southern Provinces bound themselves '^ to main- 
tain the Roman Catholic religion/' and practically to 
submit to Philip. And in the same month the l^orth- 
ern Provinces — Guelderland, Holland, Zeeland, 
Utrecht, and its districts — formed the Union of 
Utrecht^ which bound them to promote the Protestant 
creed, and practically to abjure allegiance to the 
King. Here were shattered the Pacification of Ghent, 
the Perpetual Edict, and the Union of Brussels, and 
all the other laborious efforts to unite Catholic and 
Protestant in a national league. The Catholics of 
the South pledged themselves to the old Church ; the 
Reformers of the ^orth pledged themselves to the 
Protestant cause ; and both to the exclusion of the 
other. Yet here too, in the dissolution of the larger \ 
confederation, lay the germs of the future history of 
the l^etherlands, that contrast of race, religion, lan- 
guage, and institutions which to-day we see in Bel- 
gium and Holland. 

The Union of Utrecht was essentially the work of 
John of l^assau, now Governor of Guelderland, and 
was cast in the mould of his dogged Protestantism 
and anti-French prejudices. In one sense it was a 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 269 

blow to tlie Prince's policy, for, professing Calvinist 
as he was, he never encouraged any attempt to estab- 
lish a Calvinist ascendency, and for a whole year he 
had abstained from joining in any public worship, 
in order to prove his neutral position as a Moderator. 
He was now sincerely anxious to make use of Anjou, 
who for the moment had the favor of Elizabeth. For 
some five months he declined to assent to this new 
Union, which had taken a form so contrary to his own 
ideas ; and it is difficult to accept the claim of the 
Apology that it was his work, except in a highly in- 
direct and general sense. But, eager for union as he 
always was, and seeing how hopeless each day was be- 
coming the broader union of all, William, with his 
invincible genius towards compromise and " opportu- 
nism," frankly accepted the narrower Union of 
Utrecht ; he made it his own ; and, surrendering his 
ideal of a great nation to be built up by Xorth and 
South, by Catholic and Protestant, so as to stretch 
from the French frontier to the Zuider Zee, he loyally 
adopted the smaller Union which proved to be the 
germ of the State of Holland. 

He still did not abandon effort to obtain a general 
settlement ; and in this spirit he allowed himself to be 
informally represented in the negotiations that took 
place at Cologne in April 1579. The Em]:)eror, Ru- 
dolph II., had long desired to act as mediator ; Philip 



270 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

and the States, both now exhausted in the long strug- 
gle, were equally willing to find a tolerable* issue. Ac- 
cordingly, on the Emperor's invitation, high and 
mighty commissioners were sent to represent the Em- 
pire and the Electors, Philip, the Pope, the States, 
and indirectly Orange and the Duke of Parma. The 
Conference lasted for several months and ended in 
nothing. As was his practice in all such affairs, the 
Prince began by full and courteous attention to all the 
propositions made ; step by step he drew the envoys 
on to disclose the utmost limits of concession ; he 
gradually elicited what to them was secondary, what 
was sine qua non. He then, very positively and al- 
most bluntly, laid down his owti ultimatum — and it 
was always the same thing, just as he had told Bonte, 
Leoninus, Requesens, Don John, and Parma. His 
terms were, identification of his own interest with 
that of the States, withdrawal of the Spanish soldiery, 
freedom of worship for all, and solid guarantees. 
These granted, he was willing himself to quit the 
J^etherlands for ever, and live at peace in N'assau. 
His policy was subtle, hardly straightforward (if 
such a word exists in the lexicon of diplomacy), and 
it was the cause of prodigious waste of patience, 
paper, and oratory. But to William it was a means 
of exhausting every conceivable chance ; it gained 
him time and opened to him secrets ; and in final 



^ 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 271 

result it manifested his own indomitable consistency 
and constancy. 

It i^the more instructive and interesting because it 
is only in recent years that research has discovered at 
Simancas, in Spanish despatches and translations, 
the secret negotiations which the Duke of Terranova 
held with the Prince on behalf of the King. The 
Duke was quite as much convinced as were Requesens, 
Granvelle, or Don John, that everything depended on 
the Prince. He was authorized to offer Orange the 
release of his eldest son, de Buren, from Spain, the 
restoration to him of all the honors and estates of his 
house, and 400,000 ducats * to discharge debts — the 
pole condition was that the Prince should quit the 
Netherlands. 

William allowed these terms to be discussed, and 
sent Brunynck, his secretary, to Cologne as his pleni- 
potentiary. The commissioners, ducal and episcopal, 
were fluttered with hope ; Swartzenberg, the Imperial 
envoy, was offered 20,000 ducats and a command 
worth 5000 more, if he won over the great rebel. And 
after months of negotiation, the Prince calmly sent a 
despatch (which exists only in a Spanish copy) 
wherein, after truly Castilian compliments, he de- 

* The ducat was an Austrian coin, but was used also in 
Holland, Germany, Russia, and other countries. Its value is 
given as $3.28. 



272 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

clares that he and the States are absolutely at one ; he 
cannot treat separately; he asks nothing for himself 
— nothing but to free the land from foreign tyranny ; 
and he accepts whatever the States accept. As to the 
splendid offers of Philip, well, if his son were re- 
leased from his prison, and he himself were restored 
to all his offices and estates, if he were reimbursed his 
outlay in Germany (calculated at 2,000,000 florins*), 
all his losses and damages were made good, — and, be- 
sides this, if free worship according to the Protestant 
ritual were guaranteed in all places where it had been 
introduced, — then the Prince would withdraw. The 
mitred, imperial, and royal deputies broke off in 
wrath — which is not unnatural. Terranova abetted 
a plot to poison the Prince, and the Count Schwart- 
zenberg, the main agent of the secret overtures, be- 
came his enemy for life. Such is the portion of those 
who trifle with their friends, even for a great patrio- 
tic end. 

In the meantime the sleepless Alexander of Parma 
was winning his way by intrigue and by arms. The 
leaders of the Southern Provinces were gained by 
promises and gold, the masses by. fear of his army and 
sincere devotion to their ancient Church. Soon the 
Walloon Provinces were almost entirely reconciled to 
Spain. Then swooping down the Meuse, Parma laid 
* Tlie florin of the Netherlands was worth about forty cents. 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 273 

siege to Haestricht, below Liege, tlie gate into Ger- 
many. It was a strong and rich town of some S^tjOOO 
inhabitants, hardly recovered from the massacre it 
had suffered three years before. It was defended by 
about one thousand soldiers, by bodies of trained 
burghers, and some thousands of peasants who had 
taken refuge there. Parma invested it with a vet- 
eran army of 20,000 men, to which he received rein- 
forcements of about 10,000 more. He built bridges 
across the Meuse, above and below the doomed city, 
and fortified a complete line of circumvallation with 
ramparts and towers. All that was heroic and horrible 
in the sieges and defence of Haarlem and of Ley den 
■was repeated at Maestricht. Alexander led his men 
to the storm again and again, and left them repulsed 
and crushed under the walls. ALines, explosions, can- 
nonades, hand-to-hand conflicts went on night and 
day — men, women, and children joining in the fight. 
For four months the townsmen held out, and slew a 
large part of Parma's force. At last the weak garri- 
son, worn out by toil, hunger, wounds, and slaughter, 
were overpowered in a furious night assault, and the 
city was given over to indiscriminat-e massacre. 
Butchery, pillage, and outrage lasted for three days ; 
the population was extenninated ; and Maestricht was 
reduced to a deserted ruin."^ 

* Maestricht has recovered from its desolation, and is at 

18 



274 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

The fall of Maestricht inflicted an almost irrepa- 
rable blow on the patriot cause and on the influence of 
the Prince. He had labored throughout the siege to 
rouse the States to the defence ; and for most part he 
labored in vain, for the incurable divisions of party 
and of provinces made them slow to succor a town in 
Limburg, far to the east. By desperate efforts he had 
raised 7000 men, whom he sent under John and Count 
Hohenlohe to raise the siege ; but, when they reached 
it, they found Parma entrenched in an impregnable 
camp with an overwhelming force, and they were 
forced to retire. In the last extremity, William sent 
in a message promising succor, a promise which it 
was impossible for him to keep. Loud outcries were 
raised about treason, apathy, blundering, and the 
Landgrave's agent wrote home that ^' people every- 
where ceased to trust him, and thought that the Prince 
must regret that he had ever left Holland at all. He 
had lost all authority in the ISTetherlands, after allow- 
ing so many thousands to be butchered. He cannot 
even withdraw with honor ; he is not safe even in 
Antwerp, where his popularity is gone.'' 

One after another, cities, provinces, and chiefs fell 
away. John Avrote to Dillenburg that nearly every 

present a flourishing commercial and manufacturing city of 
about 35,000 inhabitants. Its chief manufactures are glass, 
earthenware, and carpets. 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 275 

one but Lalain had deserted tlie Prince. But Lalain, 
Count of Eennenburg, one of his stoutest supporters, 
now made private terms, and was bought by Spain 
for monev and a title. An anonymous letter was 
sent to the States-General accusing the Prince of 
treachery and personal aims. William took the letter 
from the hand of the clerk, who hesitated to read the 
libel, calmly read it aloud to them himself, as if it 
were an ordinary trifle, and then he proudly told 
them that he was ready to depart from them if they 
desired it, and could believe the calumnies of which 
he was the butt. This was one of the darkest hours of 
his long agony, but he still toiled on, and henceforth 
he toiled on alone. 

And now, the Spanish Cabinet, having finally rea- 
lised that the Xetherlands could not be crushed whilst 
Orange lived, and that no arts and no offers could 
bend or break his will, resorted to more systematic 
ways of compassing his death. Years before, Anto- 
nio Perez had written to Don John that he must 
" finish Orange," if he desired to satisfy the King. 
And now Cardinal Granvelle, whilom the Prince's 
mentor, friend, colleague, and rival, kept urging 
Philip to offer a reward of 30,000 or 40,000 crowns "^ 

* The Netherland crown was of silver and was worth 87 
cents. Philip offered 25,000 golden crowns (see next page) : 
the golden crown was worth nearly eleven dollars. 



276 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

to deliver the Prince dead or alive. " The very fear 
of it/' wrote the deadly prelate, '^ will paralyse or kill 
him." The King listened to his counsel, wrote to 
Parma, by Granvelle's hand, to offer the sum for the 
death of Vhomtne si pernitieux * and issued his 
famous Ban^ dated Maestricht, 15th March 1580, 
which may be thus condensed. 

Philip, by the grace of God, King of Castile, and so forth, 
etc. , etc. , to all to whom these presents shall come. Whereas, 
William of Nassau, a foreigner in our realms, once honored 
and promoted by the late Emperor and by ourselves, has by 
sinister practices and arts gained over malcontents, lawless 
men, insolvents, innovators, and especially those who were 
suspected of religion ; and has instigated these heretics to 
rebel, to destroy sacred images and churches and profane the 
sacraments of God ; and has promoted revolt by a long series 
of offences, encouraging the public preaching of heresy, and 
persecuting priests, monks and nuns, with a view to exter- 
minate by impieties our Holy Catholic faith ; whereas he has 
taken a consecrated nun and abbess in the lifetime of his own 
lawful wife, and still lives with her in infamy ; whereas he 
has been the head of the rebellion against our sister, the 
Duchess of Parma, against the Duke of Alva, and our brother 
Don John, and still persists in this treason, refusing all our 
offers of clemency and peace, and supporting the " damnable 
League of Utrecht " ; whereas the country can have no peace, 
whilst "this wretched hypocrite" troubles it with his in- 
sinuations (as do those whose conscience is ulcered like Cain 
or Judas), and, foreigner as he is, puts his whole happiness in 
ruining our people : 

Now we hereby declare this head and chief author of all the 
troubles to be a traitor and miscreant, and enemy of ourselves 

* So pernicious a man. 



DISCORD— BAX— APOLOGY. 2Y7 

and our country. We interdict all our subjects from holding 
converse with liini, from supplying him with lodging, food, 
water, or fire under pain of our royal indignation. And, in 
execution of this Declaration, ice empower all and every to 
seize the person and the goods of this William of Xassau, as 
enemy of the human race ; and hereby, on the word of a king 
and as minister of God, ice promise to any one icho has the 
heart to free us of this pest, and who will deliver him dead or 
alive, or take his life, the sum of 25.000 crowns in gold or in 
estates for himself and his heirs; we icill pardon him any 
crime if he has been guilty, and give him a patent of nobility, 
if he be not noble, and we will do the same for all accomplices 
and agents. And we shall hold all who shall disobey this 
order as rebels, and will visit them with pains and penalties. 
And. lastly, we give command to all our gorernors to have 
this Declaration published in all parts of our said Provinces. 

In due course the Prince caused to be drawn up and 
published his reply, the famous Apology^ his official 
defence of his whole life and career. The document 
covers more than one hundred pages of close print. 
It is rhetorical and diffuse, and apparently modelled 
on the orations of Cicero by a learned and eloquent 
scholar. The hand of an ecclesiastical scribe is as 
evident in it as in the Ban itself. It was said to be 
drawn by de Villiers, an eminent Protestant divine 
and once an advocate, now TTilliam's chaplain. The 
Prince himself composed the argument throughout, 
and certainly is responsible for it as a whole. 

The Prince of Orange, Count of Xassau and' so forth, etc., 
etc., Lieutenant-General in the Low Countries and Governor 
of Brabant. Holland. Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and 
Admiral thereof, to the States-General Greeting :— 



278 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

I take it as a signal honor that I am the mark of the cruel 
and barbarous proscription hurled at me by the Spaniard for 
undertaking your cause and that of freedom and independ- 
ence ; and for this I am called traitor, heretic, hypocrite, 
foreigner, rebel, enemy of the human race, and I amto be killed 
like a wild beast, with a price offered to my assassins. I am 
no foreigner here, no rebel, no traitor. My princedom, which 
I hold in absolute sovereignty, and all my baronies, fiefs, and 
inheritances in Burgundy, and in tlie Netherlands, are mine 
by ancient and indisputable right, and have the sanction of 
my good friend the late Emperor and the public law of Europe. 
My ancestors were powerful Lords in the Low Countries, long 
before the House of Austria set foot therein, and, if need be, 
I will rehearse the ancient history of the House of Nassau to 
whom Dukes of Burgundy and the Emperors have owed so 
much for generations past. So far back as the year 1039 my 
ancestors were reigning Counts and Dukes in Guelderland for 
centuries, whilst the ancestors of the King were mere Counts 
of Hapsburg in Switzerland. King he may be in Spain or 
Naples, or of the Indies, but we know no King here ; we know 
only Duke or Count — and even our Duke is limited by our 
ancient privileges, to maintain which Philip has pledged his 
oath on his accession, though he professes to have been 
absolved from it by the Pope. 

Traitor, he calls me, against my lawful sovereign — he him- 
self deriving his crown through Henry, the bastard, that 
traitor and rebel against Pedro, his liege lord, his own father's 
son, whom he killed with his own hand. If Don Pedro were 
a tyrant, what is Philip ? What was Philip's own ancestor, 
then a Count of Hapsburg, when he turned his sword against 
my ancestor, his liege lord Adolphus, the Emperor ? Adulterer, 
he calls me, who am united in holy matrimony by the ordi- 
nances of God's Church to my lawful wife— Philip who married 
his own niece, who murdered liis wife, murdered liis own 
son, and many more, who is notorious for his mistresses and 
amours, if he did not instigate Cardinal Granvelle to poison 
the late Emperor Maximilian ! 

The mischief has all arisen from the cruelty and arrogance 



DISCORD— BAN— APOLOGY. 279 

of the Spaniard, who thinks he can make slaves of us, as if 
we were Indians or Italians ; of us who have never been a 
conquered people, but have accepted a ruler under definite 
conditions. This is the cancer that we have sought to cauter- 
ize. I was bred up a Catholic and a worldling, but the 
horrible persecution that I witnessed by fire, sword, and water, 
and the plot to introduce a worse than Spanisli Inquisition 
which I learned from the King of France, made me resolve 
in my soul to rest not till I had chased from the land these 
locusts of Spain. I confess that I sought to ally my friends 
and nobles of the land to resist these horrors, and I glory in 
that deed. And of the resistance to the tyranny of Spain in 
all its stages I take the responsibility, for I view with indig- 
nation the bloodthirsty cruelties, worse than those of any 
tyrant of antiquity, which they have inflicted upon the poor 
people of this land. Has not the King seized my son, a lad at 
college, and immured him in a cruel prison. Does he not 
delight in autos-da-fe 9 Did he not order me to kill worthy 
persons suspected of religion ! Never ! I say. By fire and 
sword, no cause can be gained {par les feus et les glaives on 
rCadvance rien). Did he not send here the monster Alva, 
who swore eternal hatred to this people, and boasted that he 
had put to death 18,000 persons innocent of everything but 
differing from him in religion, a man whose tyranny and 
cruelty surpass anything recorded in ancient or modern 
history ? 

He accuses me of being a demagogue, a flatterer of the 
people. I confess that I am, and whilst life remains, shall 
ever be on the popular side {je suis et serai toute ma vie 
popidaire), in the sense that I shall maintain your freedom 
and your privileges. And all the offers that have been made 
to me, the release of my poor son, the restoration of all my 
estates and honors, and the discharge of all my debts — I have 
treated these with scorn, for I will never separate my cause 
from yours. And equally I spurn his setting a price on my 
head. Does he think he will frighten me by this, when I 
know how for years I liave been surrounded by liis hired 
assassins and poisoners ? Does he think he can ennoble my 
assassin ; when, if this be the road to nobility in Castile, there 



280 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

is no gentleman in the world, amongst nations who know 
what is true nobility, who would hold converse with so 
cowardly a miscreant? 

As for myself — would to God that my exile or death could 
deliver you from the oppression of the Spaniard ! How 
eagerly would I welcome either ! For what think you have 
I sacrificed my whole property, my brothers who were dearer 
to me than life, my son who was kidnapped from his father ; 
for what do I hold my life in my hand day and night, if it be 
not that I may buy your freedom with my blood ? If you 
think that my absence or my death can serve you, I am will- 
ing. Here is my head, of which no prince or monarch can 
dispose, but which is yours to devote to the safety of your 
Republic. If you think that my poor experience and such 
industry as I have can serve you yet, let us all go forward 
with one heart and will to complete the defence of this poor 
people, with the grace of God, which has upheld me so often 
in dire perplexity and straits, and let us save your wives and 
your children, and all that you hold dear and sacred. 

Je Le Maintiendrai.* 
* I will maintain it. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

UXITED STATES AXJOU ASSASSINS. 

1581-1583. 

After the mortal defiance exchanged between King 
and Prince by the Ban and Apology, nothing re- 
mained but war to the knife. William formally sub- 
mitted his defence to the States with an earnest appeal 
to them offering them his devotion through life. It 
was adopted with enthusiasm. He thereupon printed 
the Apology in French, Dutch, and Latin, and sent it 
forth with a really passionate circular letter from 
himseK to the leading princes of Europe (-Ith Feb- 
ruary 1581). He evidently desired to show the 
whole world that he had burnt his ships and meant to 
fight Spain to the death ; for William always had his 
eloquence under the control of his judgment. But the 
violence of the Apology alarmed some and disgusted 
others. *^ Xow the Prince is indeed a dead man! " 
said the cautious Ste. Aldegonde. Honest John of 
Xassau shook his head, and the German chiefs grum- 
bled. John at length withdrew from Holland alto- 

281 



282 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

gether; he married a second wife; and settled down 
as a patriarch in Nassau. From the Lutherans noth- 
ing more could be hoped ; they had ceased to take any 
further part. And this fierce "war of words led up to 
its inevitable result (as William designed it should) 
— the abjuration of Philip as sovereign of the Nether- 
lands. Before men's minds could be ready for a step 
of such unparalleled audacity, they needed a rude 
awakening out of inveterate tradition. 

It is the testimony of Catholic historians, of that 
age and of ours, that the Ban and Apology injured 
the credit of Philip with the Netherlanders and raised 
that of the Prince. The sagacity of Parma antici- 
pated this result ; Renon de Prance complains ^' that 
the people always side with the oppressed." And 
William took advantage of the thrill of indignation 
caused by these tremendous " Philippics " — (it is his 
own word) — to press on the abjuration of the King. 
Within a few months it was voted by the States of 
Holland. And after long debates and urgent appeals 
from the Prince, the States-General declared their 
independence, and renounced their allegiance in a 
memorable Act (26th July 1581). 

It was indeed no slight or simple change. To the 
traders, it meant confiscation and outlawry in Spanish 
ports; to the Catholics, it meant Protestant ascend- 
ency; to the ordinary citizen, it was a formidable 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 283 

defiance of all the traditions of loyalty and civil 
society. It was the first great example of a whole 
people officially renouncing allegiance to their heredi- 
tary and consecrated monarch ; and it was by two gen- 
erations in advance of the English Commonwealth, by 
two centuries in advance of the American and French 
Republics. It was destined to have a crucial influence 
over the course of modern civilisation. 

A prince (they said) is appointed by God to be the shep- 
herd of His people. When he fails in this duty, when he 
oppresses them, violates their rights, and tramples on their 
liberties, as if they were slaves, then he is not a prince but a 
tyrant. And the Estates of the land are then justified in 
deposing him and placing another on his throne. They re- 
hearsed in formal and moderate language the story of the 
persecutions and tyrannies they had endured from Philip 
during twenty years, dwelling mainly on acts of oppression 
rather than on religious persecution. They then declared the 
King of Spain deposed from sovereignty over them, and re- 
fused to recognize his authority or his officials. And this was 
clenched by a new Oath, whereby Philip was renounced and 
allegiance was transferred to the United Netherlands. 

" Facinus," writes the Jesuit Strada in horror, 
" quasi ahhorrente animo hactenus swpersedi." * It 
was, as he truly felt, the knell of absolute, indefeasible 
monarchy " by the grace of God.'' And the wrath of 
Heaven, he adds, was signified by a terrific earthquake 
(ingens insoUtusque terrae-motus) . 

* "I have thus far turned fiwaj^ from the act as from a 
liorrible thought." 



284 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

"No one knew so well as the Prince that to abjure 
allegiance to Philip was not enough — that without 
some protector they were lost. In his own age and in 
ours he has been reproached for not f ranklj accepting 
the sovereignty himself. The States of Holland, a 
year before, had offered him the Countship of Hol- 
land, which he steadily refused. And now he risked 
his reputation and influence by almost forcing on the 
United States the sovereignty of a French prince. 
William refused sovereignty himself for the same 
reasons and in the same way as Cromwell. He felt 
that acceptance by him would hopelessly alienate the 
Catholic and Belgian elements. He did not see the 
possibility of a Republic. Like Cromwell, he was 
willing to take on himself the whole responsibility of 
power; he would not accept the formal titles of sov- 
ereignty ; yet he felt that a titular sovereign of royal 
rank was inevitable. He sought for a titular sover- 
eign in the royal House of France ; and, in spite of all 
the follies and falsehood of the Valois, he stuck to the 
Duke of Anjou with an obstinacy which is part of his 
character, but is not very easy to explain. 

Ample materials exist to show us all that was pass- 
ing in William's mind in this intricate and tangled 
problem. He addressed a set of powerfully-reasoned 
messages to the States-General ; he wrote a set of long 
and intimate letters to his brother John and to others. 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU-ASSASSINS. 285 

His reasons are the same in substance throughout. 
They may be thus condensed. 

The condition of the Provinces, after a fierce struggle dur- 
ing tsvelve years, is almost desperate. A great soldier, with 
an army of veterans, never yet defeated in the field, is win- 
ning back town after town. The Provinces, and even the 
great cities, act separately, and can scarcely be brought to 
act as one, even in extreme crises. They have neither gen- 
erals of experience nor trained soldiers of their own. They 
can hardly raise money to pay the foreign men-at-arms they 
need as garrison ; and these are continually turning against 
them, betraying, or plundering them. Religious differences 
are a constant source of division, suspicion, and intrigue. 
Philip has at last been abjured ; but his place can only be 
taken by a prince of some great royal house. The Empire, 
the Dukes of the Rhinelands, England, and France have all 
been tried and besought in vain. As to the German chiefs, 
they are all now liopelessly alienated, and are oppressing the 
calvinists at home. England might help them now and then 
as it served her turn. But she has refused to take them under 
her protection. Without the protection of some great Power, 
there is nothing before them but anarchy within, and crush- 
ing defeat from the sword of Alexander. 

There are but three courses to take : (1) submission to Spain, 
tyranny, and the Inquisition ; (2) to fight it out alone ; (3) 
to call in the brother of the King of France. The first they 
must all reject with indignation to the last gasp of breath. 
The second is beyond comparison the best, if it were not im- 
possible. Without men, generals, money, or arsenals, how 
were the remnant of the Provinces to contend against the 
most powerful King in the world, when, even united, they 
had been crushed in a series of cruel defeats ? If we had the 
support of a great Power we could hold our own till we wore 
down even Philip of Spain. Thus nothing remains but the 
third course, alliance with a French prince. 

It is true that An jou is a Catholic, a foreign adventurer, and 
deeply distrusted by our best friends, Th^ House of V^lois 



2S6 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

has a black record, and the Duke maj" be as bad as any of his 
House. But he is the heir to tlie throne of France. Henry 
III. must be forced to support a cause to which his brother 
and heir is committed. He, and he alone, could form an 
effective counterpoise to Pliilip. Bad as is the conduct of the 
French Court, Protestants have from time to time been pro- 
tected by Anjou, and still more by the King of Navarre, the 
next heir to the Crown. In any case, France is no such 
enemy of the Reformation as Spain is and must ever be. 
Anjou can bring us a powerful French force, and France 
blocks the passage against Philip. To defy France and Spain 
at the same time is certain ruin. Anjou may at any moment 
succeed to the Crown of France ; he is the accepted suitor of 
the Queen of England ; he has supporters in the Empire. 
His rank and connections might bring us invaluable aid ; and 
if he seeks to become a tyrant, we can easily master him. In 
any case we must muzzle him, and make him our instrument ; 
we will never suffer him to become our master. His exalted 
rank will attract the waverei-s, and will unite the factions 
and provinces, if any name can do so. Tlie fact that he is a 
Catholic is so far a gain that he may win over our Southern 
brethren to join us. To forbid Protestants in the hour of need 
to seek help from Catholics is rank fanaticism, repudiated 
often by most truly religious men. The man who, on his way 
to Jericho, fell among robbers and was left for dead, was 
succored by the Samaritan when the priest and Levite passed 
by on the other side. 

William was under no illusions as to the character 
of Anjou. This meanest of his vile race was hid- 
eous in person, depraved in nature, fickle, treacher- 
ous, and grasping. He had abilities and power of 
fascination. In spite of his vices, cowardice, and 
falsehood, the accident of birth had made him a cen- 
tre of great importance ; and, in that age of intrigue, 



UNITED STATES-ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 28Y 

change, and counterpoise, men of sense and virtue 
believed that they could use him to a good end. 
Henry of i^avarre, a keen judge of men and Anjou's 
deadly enemy, said he was malin, volage, cauteleux, 
et deloyal, ^ no unfair estimate of his whole career. 
" II me trompera hien/^ said the stout Gascon, '' s'il 
ne trompe tous ceux qui fieront en luy.^^ f Orange 
did not trust him ; he was not deceived ; in his ex- 
tremity he clutched at Anjou's name, and believed 
that he could use him. Her grenouille, X as Eliza- 
beth called him, was now playing Bottom to the 
Queen's Titania. And so, like the sagacious Queen, 
like Ste. Aldegonde, like Burleigh and many more, 
William of Orange persuaded himself that it was 
worth while to make a friend even of '' false, fleeting, 
perjured " Francis of Valois, Duke of Anjou and of 
Alengon. 

Overtures had been begun long ago. In 1573, at 
Blamont, Louis of N^assau reports to the Prince their 
whispered conference. In 1576, soon after the Union 
of Delft, William persuaded the States of Holland 
and Zeeland to offer their sovereignty to Anjou. 
With the " Peace of Monsieur," their hopes from 

* "Cunning, fickle, crafty, and disloyal." 

t "He will completely deceive me if he does not deceive 
all who trust him." 
X Frog. 



288 ' WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

France rose high. For years negotiations were sus- 
pended, renewed, or dropped, as the Emperor, Eliza- 
beth, the German chiefs, or the enthusiasm of the 
States themselves, alternately grew hot or cold. 
When Matthias, Casimir, and Don John were all 
pressing forward after the massacre at Gembloux,* in 
1578, Anjou came in en the invitation of the Catho- 
lics as a counterpoise to the Calvinists. William 
had not invited him, and did not w^ant him, but he 
obtained for him the title of " Defender of the Neth- 
erlands," used him, checkmated him, and induced 
him to withdraw. But, after the fall of Maestricht, 
the Prince took up Anjou in earnest, and pressed on 
the alliance with singular force and pertinacity, in 
spite of the warnings of his brother and the German 
chiefs, and the dogged aversion of Hollanders and 
Calvinists to a Frenchman and a Valois. As John 
put it, 72071 sunt facieTfida mala, ut eve7iiant hona.\ 

Beating down all opposition, the Prince effected 
the Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours, ratified at Bordeaux 
(December 1580), whereby Anjou, effectively " muz- 
zled," was to receive the sovereignty of the E^ether- 
lands in return for military aid. In the following 

* For the massacre of Gembloux (formerly written Gem- 
blours) see p. 254 and note. 

f " It is not necessary to do evil that good may come." 
This is in direct contrast to the Jesuit maxim, "The end 
justifies the means." 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 289 

year he brought an army from France and had some 
success. Returning from his grotesque suit to Eliza- 
beth, who thrust him on the States with cynical rec- 
ommendation as ung aultre soy mesmes^^ Anjou was 
solemnly installed at Antwerp as Duke of Brabant 
(February 1582). The Prince, however, remained 
the real sovereign. By a private arrangement, An- 
jou understood that Holland and Zeeland would ac- 
cord him nothing but a nominal acceptance. And 
now again they formally offered the Prince the titu- 
lar Countship of Holland, which at last William ac- 
cepted (August 1582). To this act he attached no 
great importance. It pacified the irritation of the 
Calvinists, but it was a fresh bar to any hopes of a 
United I^etherlands. He little saw that it was des- 
tined to be the root of a dynasty which has grown and 
flourished for three centuries. 

The restless, greedy, insolent Yalois now com- 
plained bitterly of his treatment. He demanded a 
civil list of 350,000 florins f and the authority of a 
king. Elizabeth by her own hand warned William 
not ^^ to torment a prince of such quality and 
merit." And now the Duke contrived an outrage 
worthy of a Borgia or a Visconti. He had been 
installed with gorgeous ceremonies as Count, Duke, 

* As her veiy self. 

f The florin was worth about forty cents. 
19 



290 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

and Lord of various Provinces when suddenly he 
ordered a coup-de-main on Antwerp in the midst of 
entire peace. His French men-at-arms dashed into 
the city, killed the guard, and charged through the 
streets, shouting, '^Anjou! the Mass! Kill! kill!" 
The citizens rallied at their own doors, drove out the 
soldiers, slaying them in heaps. Anjou and his 
brigands were repulsed. And the " French Fury " 
remains a monument of treachery and ferocity, sur- 
passing even the '' Spanish Fury " in villainy, though 
not in bloodshed. Part of the plot had been to 
inveigle and seize the Prince. He escaped this peril, 
and rushed in to stop the fighting, shouting out that 
it was a misunderstanding. 

Even now the Prince would not give up Anjou, 
who wrote shameless appeals to William, as did the 
Queen-mother in France, and Elizabeth from Eng- 
land. On a balance of dilemmas, the Prince still 
held to the last of his three courses, and, in spite of 
all, thought that France was their best hope. He 
refused for himself the Dukedom of Brabant, and 
with incessant labor, and in the teeth of hot remon- 
strances, he effected a hollow reconciliation with the 
Duke. " Better have Philip than Anjou ! " they 
cried. ^' Then kill me at once," replied William. 
At last the irritation at Antwerp was so fierce that 
William was personally threatened and insulted as a 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 291 

traitor. He left Antwerp for ever and established 
himself at Delft. But he succeeded in obtaining the 
formal acceptance of Anjou, which remained a mere 
form, as perhaps the Prince had expected. The false 
Valois, who had more than once plotted against the 
life of Orange, was now secretly intriguing with 
Parma. After a few months of futile conspiracy, he 
retired into France, a physical and moral wreck 
under mortification and disease. He expired in 
torment, pouring out blood, and so passes out of 
history, leaving nothing good but the fact that he thus 
opened France to the Bourbon.* 

The obstinacy with which Orange clung to the 
French alliance, after all the perfidies of Anjou, car- 
ried to the utmost limit his maxim of " using what 
you can get, not what you would like," of keeping all 
passion out of policy — his habit of inexhaustible 
patience, compromise, forgiveness, suppressing of 
resentment, and resorting to the most dangerous in- 
struments in pursuit of a great end and with infinite 
precaution. He was a man using dynamite in a 
desperate strait. He felt himself to be treating not so 
much with the wretched Anjou as with the French 
Crown. And, before we can condemn his policy, we 
must thoroughly study his elaborate despatches, both 
public and private, wherein he justified his course. It 
* Anjou's death occurred June 10, 1584. 



292 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

served at least to show his sincerity and absence of 
personal ambition. At any time for years he might 
have placed on his own brow the coronets which he 
forced the Provinces to confer upon Anjou — a'dvice 
which they resented w^ith insult and outrage. 

It is not so clear why he did not make more of 
Henry of Navarre, his wife's cousin- in-blood, unless 
it be that the Hollanders still looked on Henry as a 
frondeur * and a madcap ; and during the life of 
William^ the gallant Gascon was little more than a 
powerless pretender. Henry himself spoke of Will- 
iam and his cause with lively sympathy, and signed 
himself to the Prince vostre plus affectionne Cousin et 
plus par f aid amys.j- It was not until after the death 
of Orange that Henry became heir to the throne and 
a great power. Speculation may revel in the thought 
of a close alliance between William of Orange and 
Henry of Navarre. Henry might have become per- 
haps Stadtholder of the ^N'etherlands ; but if so, he 
would never have been King of France. 

During all these years it is amazing to contemplate 
the industry of the Prince and the whirlpool of busi- 
ness in which his life was passed, as we review the 
documents preserved in the archives of Holland and 
Belguim, Paris and London. They combine all con- 

* Literally slinger : that is, rioter, agitator. 

f " Your most affectionate cousin and devoted friend." 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 293 

ceivable details of diplomacy, administration, and 
war. E^egotiations, both public and secret, are car- 
ried on simultaneously with various courts, states- 
men, and agents. Incessant appeals to the States for 
unity, energy, moderation, and courage are mingled 
with minute and intricate directions to local officials, 
and these with orders to officers on land and sea. On 
a casual scrap we may see memoranda for dealing 
with twenty questions of urgency awaiting decision. 
What about those ships in Zeeland ? — about the artil- 
lery from Brussels ? — what instructions for Ste. 
Aldegonde ? What as to the fortifications at Muide ? 
Is papistry to be tolerated in Zierikzee ? For years 
the Prince remains the sole arbiter of all things 
ecclesiastical and civil, military and diplomatic^ 
financial and judicial. He was like a man, he said, sit- 
ting on a stool with one leg broken off ; if he inclined 
to one side or other, he must fall down. And all this 
mass of business had to be settled in the mdist of a 
ferocious and invincible foe, discord in each province, 
the outrages of Catholic zealots in one town and of 
Protestant fanatics in another town, demagogic fac- 
tion, foreign intrigue, local animosities, the desertion 
of friends and hired assassins. When William, 
Count de Berghes, another brother-in-law, turned 
traitor, and with his sons enlisted under Parma, the 
Prince drank to the dregs the cup of bitterness. He 



29i WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

might well take as his device — saevis tranquillus in 
undis.^ 

And now the Baji began to work in earnest. From 
the Rhine to the Tagus, avarice, fanaticism, and am- 
bition were stirring the secret thoughts of wild men. 
Gold, heaven, and nobility were all to be won bj a 
bold stroke. From kings, generals, and prelates 
came words of encouragement ; and priests blessed 
the weapon suggested by the deadly Cardinal. For 
ten years William had been dogged by assassins — 
French, Scotch, Spanish, German, Flemish had all 
tried at the instigation first of Alva, then of Requi)- 
sens, of Parma, Mendoza, Terranova, and other gran- 
dees of Spain — and all attempts had failed. The 
dagger, the pistol, poison, explosion — none hit the 
mark. At length an elaborate conspiracy almost suc- 
ceeded. A Spanish official at Lisbon obtained from 
Philip a promise of 80,000 ducats f for the Prince's 
death ; he entered into correspondence with one Anas- 
tro, a bankrupt Spanish merchant at Antwerp. The 
merchant induced his clerks, Jaureguy and Venero, 
both young Biscayans, to undertake the murder. 
Timmermann, a Dominican monk, gave Jaureguy ab- 
solution, the sacrament, and a blessing. The lad, 
armed with a pistol, and protected by an Agnus Dei, 

* Calm in the cruel waves. 

f This would amount to nearly two million dollars. 




The assassination of William tlie Silent at Antwerp.— Page 205. 

William the SiJent 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 295 

a Jesuit catechism, a holy taper, and a charmed toad- 
skin, heard Mass devoutly, and then forced himself 
into the hall at Antwerp, where the Prince was dining 
in public according to custom. He was thrust out, 
but hung about the door, pretending to be a suppliant. 
As William passed forth, Jaureguy presented a peti- 
tion, and placing his pistol close to the Princess face, 
shot him through the neck, the palate, and the cheek. 
The assassin was instantly pierced with scores of 
swords and halberds. The Prince fell, calling out, 
^' Do not kill him ! — I forgive him my death." 

The plot was thought to come from Anjou and the 
French ; but young Maurice, then barely fifteen, 
closed the house doors, searched the dead assassin, 
found the conspiracy to be Spanish, and arrested Ve- 
nero and Timmermann the priest. Aiiastro escaped 
and ran off to claim the reward. Anjou burst into 
tears and sobbed for half an hour, swearing that he 
had lost a father. The Prince was carried to bed, the 
blood was stanched, and he prepared for his end. To 
the burgomaster he said, '' If it please God, in whose 
hand I am, to take me, I submit with patience to 
His will. I commend to your care my wife and 
children." To the chaplain, de Villiers, he said, 
^^Will God padron all the blood spilled in these years ? 
I put my trust in His mercy. In His mercy alone 
can be my salvation ! " 



296 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

His fine constitution and serenity of nature saved 
his life, which hung upon a thread for weeks. Thej 
could not stop the bleeding, as pressure choked the 
breathing; and when the wound. was healing, a fresh 
hemorrhage broke out, which was at length stopped 
by the continuous pressure of attendants' thumbs on 
the vein, maintained bv relays night and day. He 
lost forty ounces of blood ; but in six weeks he was 
well. He had lain motionless and speechless, calm 
and thoughtful, writing his last instructions on tab- 
lets. His great anxiety was to clear the French 
Prince and his people, to appease the excitement in 
the city, and to confirm them in the alliance with An- 
jou. When Venero and Timmermann were con- 
demned to death, the Prince Avrote from his bed to 
spare them torture — 

I have heard that to-morrow the}' are to execute the two 
prisoners, the accomplices of him who shot me. For my part. 
I most willingly pardon them. If they are thought deserving 
of a signal and severe penalty, I beg the magistrates not to 
put them to torture, but to give tliem a speedy death, if they 
have merited this. Good-night ? 

William survived: the shock killed his wife. 
Charlotte de Bourbon, rushing forward at the sound 
of the shot, swooned and fell from one fit of fainting 
into another, until she calmed herself sufficientlv to 
tend her wounded husband. The second hemorrhage, 
"with its agony of suspense, brought on fresh convul- 



UNITED STATES— ANJOU— ASSASSINS. 297 

sions, which exhausted the remaining strength of a 
mother with a baby of three months. She wrote to 
her brother a last letter full of affection and meek 
devotion. Three days after her husband had attended 
a solemn thanksgiving on his recovery, Charlotte 
expired at the age of thirty-five (5th May 1582). 
Her end was soothed with evangelical piety and 
Christian resignation. Just before the birth of her 
last child she had made a careful will, full of devout 
expressions, with gifts of personal ornaments, and 
mementoes to all her children, relations, and house- 
hold. And she left to all who had known her the 
memory of a fine and loving nature endowed with 
conspicuous dignity and charm. 

The married life of Charlotte de Bourbon, of less 
than seven years, had been one of complete happiness 
and of noble example. William had given her his 
whole confidence, and trusted her with most import- 
and duties. Her letters to him, to her father and her 
brother, to her mother-in-law, and to her step-chil- 
dren, are beautiful models of thoughtfulness, good 
sense, and affection. With loving persistence she at 
last overcame the anger of her father ; and before her 
death she was reconciled to him, and to all who had so 
bitterly resented the marriage. She left William six 
daughters, all of whom had an eventful history, 
which is fully stated in Appendix A. 



298 AVILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Louisa Julianaj named after Charlotte's father and 
William's mother, married Frederick IV., Elector 
Palatine, and became the grandmother of Prince 
Rupert and the Electress Sophia, and thus the ances- 
tress of the reigning houses of England, Prussia, 
Austria, Russia, Italy, and Spain, and also of many 
men and women famous in history. Elizabeth, god- 
daughter of England's virgin Queen, married the 
Due de Bouillon, and became ancestress of that 
famous House, and mother of Marshal Turenne. 
Catherine Belgia, born at the height of the Prince's 
fortunes, had for sponsors William's sister and the 
States-General. She married the Count of Hanau- 
Miinzenberg. Charlotte Flandrina, the god-daughter 
of the States of Flanders, was sent as an infant to her 
cousin, the Abbess of Paraclete. She was brought up, 
on her mother's death, by her Catholic relations, and 
died Abbess of Poitiers. Another Charlotte, named 
Brabantina by her sponsors, the States of Brabant, 
married the Due de Tremoille, and became ancestress 
of that illustrious race ; she was m^other of the heroic 
Countess of Derby, who, fighting with her cousin 
Prince Rupert, defended Lathom House in our Civil 
Wars. Lastly, Emilia, called Antwerpiana, from her 
sponsors, the magistrates of Antwerp, married Fred- 
erick Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibriicken. 
Amidst the profound sorrow of her husband and 



UNITED STATES— AN JOU— ASSASSINS. 299 

splendid honors from his people, Charlotte de Bour- 
bon, after her romantic and crowded life, was laid to 
rest ; and for centuries her descendants filled many a 
stirring page in the annals of Europe. 

The marriage with Charlotte, for which William 
had fought so obstinately against a torrent of opposi- 
tion, brought him a domestic life of perfect love and 
singular charm. It is rare that a statesman, whose 
life was a series of desperate struggles, has left be- 
hind him such touching memorials of domestic virtue. 
He was a man of keen sympathies and thirst for sym- 
pathy, of steadfast fidelity and expansive heart. In 
his noble letters to his saintlv mother, to his brothers 
Louis and John, to Charlotte, he pours out his inmost 
thoughts, his hopes, anxieties, and prayers. They 
breathe a deep personal communion with his God, 
without a trace of preference for any creed, doctrine, 
or Church. His letters to all his relatives and 
friends, his dealings with his family and dependants, 
are stamped with affection, forethought, judgment, 
and indulgence. He was the father, master, and 
judge not only of his o^vn children, but of his family 
and relations for many degrees. And his children 
were worthy of their father. The young Maurice had 
already begun to show his mastery and his genius 
(divinum ingenium, said his tutor.) Marie, the 
eldest daughter, now twenty-six, became a second 



300 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

mother to her motherless sisters. Even the captive 
Philip of Buren had the grace to kill in a fit of 
passion a villain who traduced his father. Few 
great rulers of men have ever known more profoundly 
than William the Silent how the love of wife, mother, 
brother, sister, daughter, son, and friends can sustain 
in peace a life that to the world without was one long 
crisis of battle, agony, and toil. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LOUISE DE COLIGXT DEATH COXCLUSIOX. 

1583-158-1. 

William^ who had been a widower nearly a year, 
now contracted a fourth marriage ; and again he 
chose an illustrious French Protestant, with whose 
family he had long had intimate relations, both public 
and private. Louise de Coligny was the eldest 
daughter of the famous admiral, and had been mar- 
ried in extreme youth to his beloved comrade, the 
gallant Charles de Teligny. In the awful night of 
St. Bartholomew she witnessed the massacre of her 
father and her husband ; the bride, but just seventeen, 
escaped imminent death, fled to Savoy, where she was 
cruelly treated, and at length returned to Prance. 
For eleven years she lived a widow in mourning and 
close retirement. She then accepted the Prince of 
Orange as her second husband, and they were quietly 
married at Antwerp on 12th April 1583: she being 
twenty-eight, and he just fifty years old. They had 
not met since her widowhood. Thus a second time 

301 



302 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

William married a ladj of eminent character and 
mature age, whom he had not seen for many years. 

Louise de Coligny was one of the noblest women of 
her time, worthy of her father and her noble race, 
worthy of her husband, the devoted helpmeet of Will- 
iam, the able counsellor and guide of her stepsor and 
of her own son, successive Princes of Orange. Con- 
temporary portraits preserve for us the refined and 
beautiful face, so full of intellect, energy, and cour- 
age. Documents, letters, anecdotes in abundance, 
testify to the graces and force of her character; nor 
did these fail her in all the crises of her tragic and 
illustrious life. She w^as destined to a great part in 
the long struggle for independence which she wit- 
nessed for nearly forty years, and she became the 
ancestress of a long line of Princes of Orange and of 
the reigning families of Holland, of Prussia, and of 
Russia. 

The grace, tenderness, and wisdom of Louise soon 
won the affection of her numerous step-children by 
three mothers, of John her brother-in-law and his 
children, and indeed of all around her. In January 
1584 her onlv son was born, and was christened 
Frederick Henry after his godfathers, the King of 
Denmark and the King of Navarre. He was destined 
to succeed his two half-brothers as Prince of Orange ; 
on the death of Maurice in 1625 he was for twenty- 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 303 

two years also Stadtholder of tlie United Provinces; 
and after a long and glorious career he practically 
established the freedom and power of the United 
Provinces. As neither Philip- William, nor Maurice, 
the only other sons of William, left any descendants, 
it is through this child of Louise de Coligny, the late- 
born son of his old age, that William the Silent trans- 
mitted his name and title to England's William III., 
and to the line of the House of Orange. 

Absorbed in unending labors, bowed down by 
disasters, but happy in the midst of his family, Will- 
iam was living in the old convent which had been 
given him as a residence in Delft. The priory of St. 
Agatha stands on the long canal and shady quay 
called the Oude Delft, just opposite the Old Church. 
It is a modest brick edifice built in a quadrangle 
round a courtyard, with a large inner dining-haJl, 
reached by a dark mnding staircase. Since he had 
made it his home, it had been called, and is still 
known as the Prinsenhof. It has recently been made 
a national memorial, and there are collected portraits, 
engravings, arms, and relics of the Founder of Dutch 
Independence. The old town of Delft, with its pic- 
turesque walls, its spires, turrets, its gateways and 
towers, with its sluggish canals winding along be- 
neath avenues of trees,, with its churches and man- 
sions in the quaint fashions of the fifteenth and six- 



3U4: WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

teenth century, still remains little altered by time, 
and is the very ideal of the quiet, industrious, and 
thriving Dutch town. 

In habits, in outward form, and in heart, William 
was deeply changed from the magnificent grandee on 
whose youth the Emperor had lavished his favor. In 
the modest and somewhat makeshift residence of a 
provincial Governor the Prince lived a simple and 
domestic life, open to all, and too deeply absorbed in 
work to give any thought to the outward man. His 
shabby dress, said an English courtier, with a loose 
old gown and a woollen vest showing through an 
unbuttoned doublet, was that of a poor student or a 
waterman, and he freely consorted with the burgesses 
of that beer-brewing town. Yet, in conversing with 
him, our fine gentleman admits there was an outward 
'passage of inward greatness. I^ow, at the age of fifty- 
one he was bald, worn with wrinkles, and furrowed 
with ague and with sorrows ; the mouth seems locked 
with iron, the deep-set watchful eyes, the look of 
strain and anxiety, give the air of a man at bay, who 
has staked his life and his life's-work (see App. B). 

He was overwhelmed with debt, and often in actual 
need of necessaries. Ten years afterwards, his liabil- 
ities to his brother John were stated at 1,400,000 
florins. On his death he had not a hundred guilders 
in cash ; and his plate, clothes, and effects were sold to 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 305 

satisfy his creditors. His wife, for whom on her 
bridal entrance into Delft nothing better could be 
found than a rude country cart, wrote piteously on 
his death to John describing her forlorn and destitute 
state. Yet no man could bear reverse of fortune and 
incessant anxieties with an air more cheerful and 
calm. In spite of his most paradoxical surname, 
William was all his life, and never more so than at its 
closing hours, one of the most affable and gracious of 
men, brilliant in speech, and famous for his charm of 
manner. It was said of him " that every time he put 
off his hat, he won a subject from the King of 
Spain.'' He enjoyed the frugal meal with his family 
around him, whom he cheered with a flow of livelv 
conversation. The history of those times has no more 
fascinating picture than that of the weary politician 
seeking rest from a thousand complications of state, 
in a family circle of his wife, sister, sons and daugh- 
ters, nephews and nieces — ^the young people of 
various ages, from Marie, now twenty-eight, and 
seven other daughters from fifteen to three years old, 
down to the boy baby of just five months. There the 
Prince seemed to find repose and safety, ^o man 
could pass the gates of the town unchallenged, nor 
could he enter the door of the Prinsenhof unnoticed 
by the guards and sentries. 

It was now two years since the failure of Jaure- 
20 



306 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

guj's attempted assassination and the execution of 
his confederates, and during that time incessant plots 
were being made with the knowledge of Parma and 
other agents of Philip to carry off his arch-enemy. 
The dagger, the pistol, and poison were all proposed. 
The assassins as yet had all failed. Either their 
courage gave way, or they were betrayed, or were 
caught and executed, or else they turned traitors and 
revealed the plot. The Prince received constant 
warnings, nor did he at all neglect them. But now 
appeared an assassin of a different type. Balthazar 
Gerard was a young Burgundian, small, mean, and 
feeble, sinister in aspect, a fervent Catholic, and a 
devoted servant of the Spanish Crown. From boy- 
hood he had nourished a fanatical desire to be the in- 
strument of freeing the world of the arch-heretic and 
master-rebel. AATien the royal Ban was issued against 
the Prince, Balthazar went to Luxemburg to carry 
out his design. There he heard that " a gentle Bis- 
cayan," as he called Jaureguy, had already murdered 
William ; he thanked God, and entered the service of 
Marshal Mansfeldt. 

On learning that the Prince had recovered from 
his desperate wound, Balthazar resumed his design. 
He communicated it to the Prince of Parma, who 
wrote to Philip that he did not think him a man who 
promised well for an enterprise of such importance, 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 307 

— toutes fois je le laissay aller."^ The assassin was 
then encouraged by Councillor Assonleville, and by 
his own confessor, who promised to remember him in 
his prayers. He reached Delft ; and taking the name 
of Frangois Guion, he succeeded in winning the confi- 
dence of the Prince's people by means of some seals 
which he had purloined from Count Mansfeldt, and 
by a story of persecution for the reformed religion of 
which he declared he was the victim. Finally, as 
bearer of a despatch to the Prince announcing the 
death of the Due d'Anjou, he was introduced alone 
into the room where the Prince was in bed. Having 
no weapon, he could do nothing. He still hung about 
the Prinsenhof, professing fervent devotion to the 
Calvinist faith, borrowed a Bible, and begged for 
help by way of charity. Thereupon the Prince or- 
dered twelve crowns to be given him. With these he 
bought pistols from one of the men on guard. This 
poor fellow who sold them hanged himself when the 
deed was done. 

On 10th July 1584 the Prince dined with his 
family in the hall which is now hung with his 
portraits and various relics. His wife, his sister, and 
three of his daughters were there, and one or two 
persons were admitted on business. William left the 
room and had just reached the circular staircase when 
* However, I let him go. 



308 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Balthazar, who had posted himself in a dark corner, 
drew his pistol and fired three balls right into the 
Prince's breast. It is related that he just murmured 
the words : ^' My God, have pitv on mj soul ! My 
God, have pity on this poor people I " He was caught 
as he fell by an attendant, laid on a couch, com- 
mended his soul unto Jesus Christ in a word whis- 
pered to his sister, and breathed his last. 

The assassin was pursued and caught. The soul of 
fire, in the mean and ill-favored frame of the fanatic, 
blazed out with a superhuman courage and self- 
sacrifice, which made him a hero and a martyr in the 
whole Catholic world. He gloried in the deed, and 
made a full confession. For four days he endured 
the most revolting torments which the ingenuity of 
demons could devise, and he was put to death with a 
horrible barbaritv which dis2:raced his executioners 
and not a little sullied the cause of his victim. All 
this Balthazar bore without a murmur, and with a 
stoical endurance which his tormentors held to be 
witchcraft, and his patrons held to be the inspiration 
of Heaven. The history of William the Silent need 
not be defaced by rehearsing the atrocities with which 
his murder was avenged — atrocities against which his 
whole life was an enduring protest. Cardinal Gran- 
velle and the Prince of Parma expressed delight in 
the murder, and begged that the murderer should be 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 309 

rewarded. Philip grumbled that it had not been done 
before ; but " better late than never/' he wrote ; and 
he publicly declared that '^ by an act of great valor 
Gerard had performed an exploit of supreme value 
to all Christendom." Philip, however, was not the 
man to pay the 25,000 crowns he had formally prom- 
ised ; * but in lieu of money he issued a patent of 
nobility to the family, exempted them from taxes, 
and settled on them certain estates that belonged to 
the Prince. And when these estates were at last 
restored to his son, they were charged with annuities 
to the murderer s family. 

William was buried with great pomp in the town of 
Delft, his son Maurice being chief mourner, and a 
magnificent mausoleum was raised in the I^ew 
Church in the Great Market. There lie also Louise 
de Coliguy, Maurice, and the princes of the House of 
Orange, to whom has been added in our own day the 
remains of the last Prince of Orange-Chalons. The 
effigy of William in marble lies surrounded by a 
canopy, beneath which are the four emblematical 
figures of Freedom, Justice, Prudence, and Religion, 
with the mottoes, je maintiendrai piete et justice — 
saevis tranquillus in undis.f And in this case, 

* See p. 277. 

f I will maintain piety and justice — Calm in the cruel 
waves. 



310 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

neither emblems nor mottoes are conventional un- 
truths. 



William died in one of the darkest hours of the 
long struggle that for twenty years he had waged 
against the power of Spain. The consummate genius 
of Parma, both in policy and war, handling his splen- 
did veterans, and making lavish use of promises and 
gold, was steadily winning back' the Catholic and 
Southern Provinces. Before the Prince's murder, 
nearly all of them were lost to the Union ; and 
Flanders and Brabant were on the verge of surrender. 
Bruges and Ghent soon gave way ; Brussels and Ant- 
werp and the other cities of Brabant followed in the 
next year. With the loss of Antwerp, the key of the 
Scheldt, the fate of the Catholic and Flemish Prov- 
inces was finally determined. !N^or is there any 
reason to think that the genius and tenacity of Will- 
iam could have changed the issue. The whole of their 
subsequent history for three centuries down to our 
own day remains to prove that permanent union be- 
tween the Dutch and Belgian races cannot be main- 
tained, — that Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, and 
Namur will neither ally with, nor submit to, a 
Calvinist, bourgeois, maritime republic. To-day these 
Belgian Provinces are the strongholds in jSTorthern 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 311 

Europe of ultramontane Catholicism and conserva- 
tive zeal. ]^or could all the resource of William and 
the heroism of Holland have long preserved them 
from submitting in the end to their historic Church 
and their ancestral lords. 

Then, was the whole of William's policy since the 
Union of Delft, the last eight years of his career, but 
labor in vain, a struggle after the impracticable, an 
attempt to construct an imposing edifice on sand ? 
^ot so. The toils, the agonies, the triumphs, of the 
effort to save Belgium from Spain during the 
Prince's lifetime, and all those . which followed for 
long years after his death, served a real end, though 
that end was not the permanent union of the seven- 
teen Provinces. It gave strength, self-confidence, and 
time to the seven Protestant Provinces of the !North 
to consolidate their union ; and it ultimately enabled 
the ten Catholic Provinces of the South to obtain 
such a modified scheme of rule as that which the 
tyrant conceded at last. The long struggle, whilst it 
created, the Dutch nation, saved the Catholic I^ether- 
lands from being crushed into a mere outlying frag- 
ment of Spain. 

Could William by any ingenuity of compromise 
have effected a permanent union of the two creeds, as 
Elizabeth of England secured a settlement which Avas 
neither Catholic nor Calvinist, as Henry of Navarre 



312 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

ultimately closed civil war by a free-and-easy conver- 
sion to a faith which was neither that of Philip nor 
that of the Colignys ? He could not. His difficulties 
ran deeper than those of Elizabeth or those of 
^N'avarre. The indelible features of race, language, 
religion, and temperament which divided the seven 
United Provinces from the Southern ^Netherlands 
were far too clearly cut to make any compromise con- 
ceivable. William, a man far more deeply religious 
in heart than Elizabeth or Henry, was incapable of 
the cynical imperiousness of the Tudor Queen, or of 
the cynical humor of the jolly Bearnais. He was 
forced to make a choice between the Vatican and 
Geneva. He chose Geneva as the creed of the 
toughest, truest-hearted, more defensible section of 
the Netherland peoples, albeit far the smaller, poorer, 
and more modest section. He chose them, and he 
stuck to them ; and his choice has been ratified by 
their history from his day to the day of Wilhelmina, 
the girl-queen. 

It was in vain for him in waiting, in speech, in 
act, to labor for mutual toleration. Christian fellow- 
ship, and national union,— things of which he alone 
in that age had conceived the beauty and the force. 
^' The difference," he kept on repeating in his large 
way, perhaps his somewhat too philosophic way, " the 
difference is not enough to keep you apart! " It was 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 313 

enough, and more than enough. And in this matter 
his error, his noble error, was this, that his serene 
vision of spiritual fellowship in humanity — a vision 

y which was opened to him alone amongst the men of 
thought and the men of action in his age — ^blinded 
him, more than a statesman should be blinded, to the 

~ madness and theological bigotries in the midst of 
which his work was cast. With all his profound 
insight, he did not quite understand that the Nether- 
lands formed not one nation, one religion, one race, 
but two, and even more ; and that differences in these 
things go deeper down than the most obvious claims 
of safety, prosperity, and peace. But, battling in 
vain to make these nations one, he and his in the end 
did make Holland indestructible and great, and did 
enable Belgium to become at last both prosperous and 
contented. 

The greater union of seventeen provinces for which 
he struggled for twenty years against hope, against 
fate, which he had seen, for a short space, as a real 
and promising fact, this' greater union died with him, 
and it was dying of itself in the last year of his life. 
But the lesser and more vigorous union of the seven 
Provinces of the l^orth grew and flourished beyond 

• his utmost dreams, till for a time it rose to be an 
Empire. The murder of their chief filled the Dutch 
people with rage and desire of revenge, but not with 



314 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

dismay. Elizabeth's English agents wrote home 
" that the wickedness of the deed hath hardened their 
stomachs to hold out as long as they have any means 
of defence " ; " it had animated them with a great 
resolution of courage and hatred engraved in them, 
to defend their liberties to the uttermost 
portion of their substance, and the last drop of their 
blood." And on the very day of the murder, the 
Estates of Holland resolved " to maintain the good 
cause, with God's help, to the uttermost, without 
sparing gold or blood." They kept their word, and 
under the sons of William, successive Princes of 
Orange, and Stadtholders of Holland, they carried on 
a successful struggle for some sixty-four years more. 
Heroism might make possible the final triumph of 
Holland, but genius itself could as little foresee it in 
the hour of Parma's victory, as it could fathom the 
approaching decadence of Spain. 

This decisive battle for national independence was 
not only the earliest, but it was the most prolonged, 
and the most desperate of all the revolutions of which 
it was the prelude. It was the first example on a 
great scale of a people defying an alien oppressor, and 
founding a free commonwealth in the teeth of a 
mighty despotism. It directly inspired the Revolu- 
tion in England of the seventeenth century, as also 
that in America of the eighteenth century; and, by 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 315 

its intellectual influences, it indirectly contributed to 
the Revolution in France. In the lifetime of " Father 
William's " youngest son and successor, Holland be- 
came the home of spiritual and political freedom — 
an asylum wherein were nurtured seeds of priceless 
value to the civilisation, policy, and thought of 
Europe. And this may solve the apparent paradox 
that a statesman whose whole career was an almost 
unbroken chain of humiliation, failure, and defeat 
conferred immortal services on after ages of mankind. 
The blood of the martyrs is the seed, not only of the 
Church, but of the State. 

The malignity of sect has even ventured to accuse 
the great Stadtholder of personal ambition, and the 
echoes of this scurrility linger in some who in our 
own day call themselves historians of truth. Un- 
scrupulous ambition did indeed stain the career of 
William's descendants and successors. But as to 
William the Silent, it is a more difficult task to 
defend his memory from the charge of being back- 
ward to assume the manifest headship into which he 
was forced by events and by his people. Should he 
not have urged from the first the repudiation of thfe 
Spanish Crown ? Was he right to have toiled for 
twelve years, by a thousand schemes, and in spite of 
rebuffs, failure, and treachery, to find a protector for 
his country in some foreign priiace — German^ Aus- 



316 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

trian, French, or English ? Was he not infatuated in 
clinging to the last to the fickle and treacherous 
x\njou ? Should he not early have accepted the sov- 
ereignty in name as well as in fact ? Should he not 
have recognised at once how hopeless was the effort to 
drive out of Belgium the House of Hapsburg and the 
creed of Rome ? Should he not, quite early in the 
struggle, and at least at the Union of Delft, have con- 
centrated the defence upon Holland, and had himself 
boldly proclaimed its Sovereign Lord and Count ? 
These are all questions most complex and obscure, 
which from the vantage-ground of three centuries of 
subsequent history we may now attempt to solve. 

William was himself a sovereign Prince, the heir 
of two ancient ruling houses, and had been brought 
up from boyhood in the Cabinet of Charles V., where 
he had seen how traditions of loyalty and king-craft 
sufficed to hold nations together in that age of con- 
fusion, resettlement, and new birth, in the throes of 
civil and religious wars. By temperament, convic- 
tion, and training, William was saturated with the 
ideas of the ruling caste, and with respect for heredi- 
tary rights and duties as the foundation of social 
order. There had been no large or recent example in 
Europe of a nation defying their lawful sovereign, 
much less of their founding anew a free independent 
commonwealth. All this colored the early career of 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 317 

the Prince ; but at last, having exhausted every pos- 
sible scheme to avoid this issue, he resolutely accepted 
it as final. 

A royal personage, as foreign protector, always 
meant the open or secret assistance of some foreign 
power, whether German, or Imperial, or French, or 
English. As a fact, the various protectorates towards 
which the Prince labored — even the offer of them — 
did bring help to the cause in some form, direct or 
indirect, material or moral. He was no doubt right 
in believing that the open or veiled assistance of one 
of the great powers, when the German Lutherans so 
cruelly abandoned the Calvinists of Holland, Avas 
absolutely indispensable to successful defence. He 
was certainly right in looking to France as his best 
friend, and in parading his hopes from France as a 
means of procuring help from the rest. In the issue 
the United Provinces gained more from France than 
from Germany, Austria, or England. And had the 
knife of Jacques Clement struck earlier home, had 
the bullet of Balthazar Gerard failed to strike at all, 
had William of Orange and Henrv of [N^avarre lived 
to act together as allied sovereigns, great things might 
have been seen in the Netherlands and in Europe. 
William stuck to the wretched Anjou w^ith perhaps 
culpable tenacity. As they died within a few weeks 
of each other we have no means of knowing what 



318 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

William's course would have been with Henry of 
l^avarre, heir to the French throne. He could not be 
expected to look forward for a hundred years when, 
in a transformed Europe and with a decadent Spain, 
Holland would be engaged in a death grapple with 
Louis XIV.* 

* It was the dream of Louis XIV. to establish a universal 
French empire, and he proceeded with red hand to endeavor 
to realize this dream. 

" On the death of Philip IV. of Spain, Louis, as his son-in- 
law, set up a claim to part of the Spanish Netherlands ; and 
in 1667, accompanied by Turenne, he crossed the frontier 
with a powerful army, took many places, and made liimself 
master of that part of Flanders known as French Flanders, 
and of the whole of Franche Comte. The triple alliance — 
between England, the States-general of Holland, and Sweden 
— arrested his career of conquest. The treaty of Aix-la- 
Chapelle (1668) forced him to surrender Franche Comte. He 
vowed revenge against the States-general, strengthened him- 
self by German alliances, and purchased with money the 
friendship of Charles II. of England. He seized Lorraine in 
1670 ; and in May 1673 again entered the Netherlands with 
Conde and Turenne, conquered half the countr}^ in six weeks, 
and left the Duke of Luxemburg to lay it waste. The States- 
general formed an alliance witli Spain and with the emperor, 
but Louis made himself master of ten cities of the empire in 
Alsace, and in the spring of 1674 took the field with three 
great armies, of which he commanded one in person, Conde 
another, and Turenne a third. Victory attended liis arms; 
and, notwithstanding the death of Turenne and the retire- 
ment of the Prince of Conde from active service, he continued 
in subsequent years, along with his brother, the Duke of 
Orleans, to extend his conquests in the Netherlands, where by 
his orders, and according to the ruthless policy of Louvois, 
the country was fearfully desolated. The peace of Niraegueu 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 319 

As to the sovereign title, liad it been claimed by the 
Calvinist William, and he but one of the vassal counts 
of the I^etherlands, it would have involved the instant 
defection of the v^hole Belgic Provinces — nov^ pre- 
dominantly Catholic and full of chiefs who regarded 
themselves as his peer, and his ascendency with 
jealousy and scorn. He who was Count of Nassau 
on the Lahn, and titular Prince of Orange on the 
Rhone, was in Brabant a mere Baron of Breda ; and 
for such an one to claim the splendid succession of 
the great House of Burgundy in the ]!^etherlands 
was simply to abandon all prospect of union between 
the seventeen Provinces at all. William therefore 
abstained, and wisely abstained, from any suggestion 
that he looked to be titular Prince of the entire IvTeth- 
erlands, though he fully and frankly accepted the 
real and paramount authority. 

Long before his death he saw that even this was 
not possible or lasting. And slowly, reluctantly, and 
with reserve he accepted the simple Countship of 
Holland, which in effect was to fall back on the seven 
Northern Provinces, and to take up for himself and 
his successors the sovereign rule. At last — almost, as 
it were, with his dying breath — he recognised the 

[Nimwegen] in 1678 left him in possession of fortresses in the 
Spanish Netherlands and of Franche Comte." — Chambers's 
Encyc. 



320 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

logic of events, founded the smaller nation which for 
three centuries has had so glorious a history, and 
transmitted to his descendants under various titles, 
and with some rude intervals of break, -^he throne of 
Holland, which the young Queen now fills amidst the 
devotion of her own people, and the cordial friend- 
ship of the Powers of Europe. 

Gloomy as were the prospects of William's family 
as they folloAved his body to the tomb in the great 
church of Delft, the future had in store for them 
much that was beyond all hope in the dark hour of 
their bereavement. The forlorn widow, left destitute 
in a strange land with her infant of hardly six months 
and ten young stepchildren, the only son a lad at 
college, bravely set herself to her overwhelming task. 
For thirty-six years more she lived, toiled, protected, 
and giiided that large household, a pattern of all wis- 
dom, goodness, and grace. She lived to see and to be 
the help of her stepson Maurice, and of her own son 
Frederick Henry, as they carried on heroically to 
triumphant issue the work of their slaughtered father 
— both amongst the foremost soldiers and statesmen 
of their time. She married eight out of the nine 
daughters of the Prince into the most illustrious 
houses of Europe, Charlotte Flandrina alone remain- 
ing unmarried as the Catholic Abbess of Poitiers. 
Philip William, the kidnapped and perverted son of 



LOUISE DE COLIGNY— DEATH— CONCLUSION. 321 

the Prince, ultimately returned to his native land, 
and was partly reconciled to the family from which 
he had been alienated so long. And to-day the nation 
which William founded by his sweat and blood three 
centuries ago is flourishing and honored; his grand- 
daughter in the eleventh degree sits on the throne of 
Holland ; the blood of the greatest of the !N^assaus 
runs in the veins of almost every royal house in 
Europe ; and amongst his descendants may be counted 
for three centuries some of the most valiant soldiers 
and some of the ablest chiefs whose deeds' adorn the 

history of Europe (see Appendix.) 
21 



APPENDIX. 

The Family of William the Silent. 

William I., 6. 25th April 1533, eldest of twelve children of 
William the Rich, Count of Nassau-Dilleuburg, and Juli- 
ana von Stolberg-Wernigerode. Prince of Orange by 
devise, 1544. Killed, 10th July 1584. He married four 
wives — 

1. Anne of Egmont, daughter of Maximilian, Count of 

Buren, etc, ; m. 6th July 1551 ; d. 24th March 1558. 
She left one son and one daughter. 

2. Anne of Saxony, daughter of Maurice, Duke and Elector 

of Saxony; h. 23d April 1544; m. 2d June 1561; re- 
pudiated, 1571 ; d. 18th December 1577. 
She left one son and two daughters surviving. 

3. Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of Louis, Due de Mont- 

pensier ; h. 1547 ; m. 12th June 1575 ; d. 5th May 1582. 
She left six daughters. 

4. Louise de Coligny, daughter of Gaspard de Coligny, Ad- 

miral of France ; 5. 28th September 1555 ; widow of 
Charles de Teligny, August 1572 ; m. Prince of Orange, 
12th April 1583 ; d. October 1620. 
She left one son. 
William the Silent, at his death in 1584, left twelve children 
by his four marriages, of ages from thirty to five months 
— three sons, who all became in succession Princes of 
. Orange, and nine daughters — three other children having 
died in infancy. 

Sons of William the Silent. 

I. Philip William (by Anne of Egmont), 6. 1554, Count of 
Buren ; m. Eleanor, daughter of Henri, Prince of Conde, 

323 



321 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

of the royal House of Bourbon. This Henri was cousin 
and comrade of Henri IV., King of Navarre and France, 
and was grandfather of the great Conde. Eleanor was 
a distant cousin of Charlotte de Bourbon, the Prince's 
third wife. Philip William became Prince of Orange 
in 1584. 
d. 1618 without leaving issue. 

II. Maurice (by Anne of Saxony), h. 14th November 1567, 

Count of Nassau. Prince of Orange, 1618, on death of 
his half-brother, Philip William. 
d. 23d April 1635, unmarried and without legitimate 
issue. 

III. Frederick Henry (by Louise de Coligny), b. 29th Jan- 

uary 1584, Count of Nassau ; became Prince of Orange, 
1625, on death of his half-brother, Maurice. 

m. Emilia of Solms-Braunsfeld, 1625 ; he d. 1647. 

Frederick Henry (sometimes called Henry Frederick), by 
his wife Emilia, had nine children, of whom one son 
and four daughters married and left descendants. 

1. William II., Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder of 
Holland ; b. 1626 ; d. {oetat. 24) 1650. 

He married Mary, daughter of Charles I., King of Eng- 
land. 

Their son, William III., b. 1650, Prince of Orange and 
Stadtholder of Holland, m. his first cousin Mary, 
daughter of James II., and was King of England, 1689- 
1702. 

They had no issue, and the male line of descent from 
William the Silent then came to an end. 

Thereupon the headship of the House of Orange-Nassau 
was settled on John William Friso, whose grandfather, 
William Frederick of Nassau, a grandson of John of 
Nassau, had married Albertina Agnes, granddaughter 
of William tlie Silent. From them descends the royal 
*- family of the Netherlands. 

Daughters of Frederick Henry. 
1. Louisa Henrietta, m. Elector of Brandenburg. 



APPENDIX 325 

2. Albertina Agnes, m. William Frederick, Count of 

Nassau-Dietz. 

3. Henrietta Catherine, m. John George II., Prince of 

Anhalt-Dessau. 

4. Marie, m. Louis Henry, Count Palatine of Zimmern. 

Descendants of Daughters of Frederick, Henry, 
Prince of Orange. 

I. Louisa Henrietta, b. 1627 ; d. 1667. 

" Excellent Louisa ; Princess full of beautiful 

piety, good sense, and affection ; a touch of the 

Nassau-heroic in her " (Carlyle, Friedrich II. 

vol. i. 364-367). 

She married 1646, Frederick William of Brandenburg, 

the Great Elector, who d. 1688. 
This Great Elector was tlie son of Elizabetli Charlotte, 
daughter of Frederick IV., Elector Palatine, by Louisa 
Juliana, eldest daughter of William the Silent and 
Charlotte de Bourbon. 
Thus the Great Elector, a great-grandson of William the 
Silent through his daughter Louisa, married Louisa 
Henrietta, a granddaughter of William the Silent 
through his son, Frederick Henry. 
From them the royal House of HohenzoUern of Branden- 
burg combines these two lines of descent from the 
Prince. 
Frederick I., the first King of Prussia (1701, d. 1713), 
married his second cousin, Sophia Charlotte, sister 
of George I. of England, and daughter of the Elect- 
ress Sophia of Hanover, who was a granddaughter 
of Louisa Juliana, eldest daughter of W^illiam the 
Silent by Charlotte de Bourbon. 
The son of Frederick L, King of Prussia, was 
Frederick William I., King of Prussia (1713-40). 
He married Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George 
I. of England, and granddaughter of the Elect- 
ress Sophia. By her he was the father of Fred- 
erick II. , called the Great. 



326 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Frederick the Great thus combined descent from 
William the Silent in four lines, one being through 
Louisa Henrietta, daughter of Frederick Henry, 
William's third son, by Louise de Coligny, and 
three lines being through Louisa, eldest daughter 
of Charlotte de Bourbon. 
Being in the direct line from Frederick I., William II., 
present German Emperor, thus unites descent from 
William the Silent in many different lines — first from 
Louisa Henrietta, eldest daughter of Frederick Henry, 
Prince of Orange, and also from Louisa Juliana, eldest 
daughter of Charlotte de Bourbon, through many lines. 
The Empress Frederick, mother of the German Em- 
peror, is also in direct line of descent from the Electress 
Sophia of Hanover. 
Charlotte, sister of William I., first German Emperor, 
who died 1888, married Nicolas, Tzar of Russia, from 
whom are descended the last three Tzars, who thus, 
with their descendants, trace their descent from William 
the Silent, tlirough the same lines as the Kings of 
Prussia. 
II. Albertina Agnes, b. 1634, d. 1697, was the second sur- 
viving daughter of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange ; 
she possessed all the virtues of her grandmother and 
her sister. 
She married William Frederick of Nassau-Dietz, grandson 
of John of Nassau-Dillenburg, the only one of the 
brothers of William the Silent who left children. 
Their grandson in the male line was John William 
Friso, Stadtholder of Friesland, recognized as his 
heir by King William III., and by the testament 
named Prince of Orange, in 1702. 
From him descends the royal family of Holland. 
William IV., Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder of 
Holland (1748-1751), the son of John William Friso, 
married Anne, daughter of George II. of England, 
who, like the rest of the House of Hanover, was de- 
scended from Louisa Juliana, eldest daughter of Char- 
lotte de Bourbon. 



APPENDIX. 327 

Their son, William V. (1751-1802), d. 1806, m. Wil- 
helmina, daughter of Augustus of Prussia, brother 
of Frederick the Great. 
She, like her husband, was fifth in descent from 
Frederick Henry. Prince of Orange, 
Their son William I., King of the Netherlands, 
1815, and King of Holland. 1830-43, m. his 
cousin Frederica. daughter of Frederick Wil- 
liam n. . King of Prussia, both of them being 
sixth in descent from Frederick Henry, Prince 
of Orange. 
The son of William I. was William H., d. 
1849, whose son was William HI., King of 
Holland, d. 1890. 
Thereupon the male line of Orange -Nassau became extinct. 



William HI., King of Holland, m.. 1879, Emma, Princess 
of Waldeck-Pyrmont, h. 1858, daughter of George Vic- 
tor, Prince of Waldeck, and of Helena Wilhelmina 
Henrietta Paulina, of Nassau, daughter of William 
George Augustus, Duke of Nassau, whose grandfather 
Karl Christian m. Carolina of Nassau, a granddaughter 
of John William Friso. Prince of Orange. 
Queen Emma is thus tenth in descent from William the 
Silent, through Frederick Henry and Albertina Agnes. 
Her husband, King William III,, was ninth in descent 
from the same stock. 
Their daugliter, WiUielmina, the present Queen, b. 
August. 1880, combines all these lines of descent 
from William the Silent, and also the lines from his 
brother. John of Nassau. 
On the death of King William III., in 1890, and the pre- 
vious death of his sons. Wilhelmina succeeded as Queen, 
her mother Queen Emma being Regent during the 
minority. 
in. Henrietta Catherine, h. 1637, d. 1708, was the third 
surviving daughter of Frederick Henry, Prince of 
Orange. 



328 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

She VI. John George II., Prince of Anhalt-Dessau. 
Their son was Leopold, "the old Dessauer '' of Frederick 
the Great's wars ; see Carlyle, Friedrich II. passim. 
" The biggest mass of inarticulate human vi- 
tality ■' (Friedrich II. vol. i. p. 401). 
The sons of Leopold were Leopold, "the young 
Dessauer." and Maurice, famous in Frederick's 
campaigns ; see Friedrich II. passim. 
The family has long flourished with the same name. 
IV. Marie, b. 1642, d. 1688. 

She 771. the Count Palatine, Lewis Henry Maurice, Duke 
of Zimmern. 

Daughters of William the Silent, 

1. Marie [by first wife], 77i. Philip, Count of Hohenlohe. 

2. Anna [by second wife], m. William Lewis, Count of Nassau. 

3. Emilia [by second wife] . 7ii. Emmanuel, Prince of Portugal. 

4. Louisa Juliana [by third wife], m. Frederick IV., Elector 

Palatine. 

5. Elizabeth [by third wife] , m. Henry, Duke of Bouillon. 

6. Catherine Belgia [by third wife] . m. Lewis, Count of Hanau. 

7. Charlotte Flandrina [by third wife] , Abbess of Poitiers. 

8. Charlotte Brabantina [by third wife], ?/i. Claudius, Duke 

of Tremoille. 

9. Emilia Antwerpiana [by third wife], m. Frederick Casimir, 

Count Palatine of Zweibrucken. 

Descendants of Daughters of William the Silent. 

1. Marie (only daughter of Anne of Egmont),5. 1556, d. 1616, 

god-child of Queen of Hungar}', Countess of Nassau and 
Buren. 
She m. (1595) Philip, Count of Hohenlohe- Langenburg, a 
valiant soldier and officer of the Prince. He was 
younger brother of Wolfgang, Count of Hohenlohe. 
commander in the war against Spain, and ancestor of 
the princely House of Hohenlohe. 

2. Anna (daughter of Anne of Saxony), b. 1563, d. 1588. 

She m. (1587) her first cousin, William Lewis, Count of 
Nassau, eldest son of John of Dillenburg. He d. (1620) 



APPENDIX. 329 

without issue, and the succession to the House of Nas- 
sau-Dillenburg ultimately passed to the descendants of 
the younger son, Ernest Casimir. 

3. Emilia (daugliter of Anne of Saxony), h. 1569, d. 1629. 

She m. (in 1597) Emanuel, Prince of Portugal. He was 
the son of Don Antonio, pretender to the throne of 
Portugal, whose adventures fill many pages in the his- 
tory of these times. Emilia inherited the self-will of 
her mother, and her passion for Prince Emanuel and 
her quarrel with her brother Maurice form one chapter 
in the romantic annals of the House of Nassau. 

4. Louisa Juliana (eldest daughter of Charlotte de Bourbon), 

b. 1576, d. 1644. 
She inherited the virtues of her mother and her grand- 
mother, after whom she was named, and she became, 
after the death of Louise de Coligny, the ruling spirit 
of the family. 
Shem. (in 1593) Frederick IV., Elector Palatine (1583- 
1610), the grandson of Frederick III., Elector Palatine 
and guardian of Charlotte de Bourbon. 
The son of Frederick IV. and Louisa Juliana was 
Frederick V., Elector Palatine, 1610-32, who m. 
Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England, the 
famous " Queen of Hearts." 
Frederick V. and Elizabeth were the King and Queen 
of Bohemia, whose misfortunes fill so many pages of 
history, till they found a refuge with the Nassaus 
in Holland. 
The children of the King and Queen of Bohemia (amongst 

others) were : — 
(1.) Charles Lewis, Elector, 1649-80. 

(3.) Prince Rupert ) nephews of Charles I. and his officers in 
(3.) Prince Maurice f the Civil Wars. 
(4.) Sophia, m. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. 

(1) Charles Lewis, the Elector, had a daughter, Charlotte 
Elizabeth, who m. Philip, Duke of Orleans, only brother 
of Louis XIV, of France. 
From them descended Philip, the Regent, Philippe 



330 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Egalite, Louis Philippe, and the whole House of 
Orleans. 
The present Due d'Orleans is descended in the twelfth 
degree from William the Silent. 
Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans, daughter of Philip, 
first Duke of Orleans and Charlotte Elizabeth of 
Bavaria m. Leopold Joseph of Lorraine. 
Their son was Francis Stephen I. (1745-65), who 
m. Maria Theresa of Hapsburg, daughter of 
the Emperor Charles VI. 
Their descendants were the Emperors from 1765 down 
to Frances Joseph, the reigning Emperor of Austria, 
who is descended in the eleventh degree from William 
the Silent. 
Theresa of Tuscany, wife of Charles Albert, King of 
Sardinia, was a great-granddaughter of Maria Theresa. 
Adelaide, the wife of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, 

was also a great-granddaughter of Maria Theresa. 
Humbert, King of Italy, is descended in the eleventh 

degree from William the Silent. 
From Francis I. and Maria Theresa were descended 
Marie Antoinette and her children, Maria Louisa, 
wife of Napoleon I., her son the King of the Romans, 
and also the so-called princes of the family of Jerome 
Napoleon. 
Similar descents might be shown for the deposed royal 

Houses of Naples, Parma, Modena, and Tuscany. 
Alfonso XIIL, reigning King of Spain, is descended in 
the eleventh degree from William the Silent, as is 
also the King of Portugal. 
(2, 3) Princes Rupert and Maurice left no legitimate de- 
scendants. 
(4) Sophia, the youngest but one of the children of Fred- 
erick V. and Elizabeth, King and Queen of Bohemia, h. 
1630, m. (1658) Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. 
She was the niece of Charles I. of England, and cousin 
of William III., Mary, and Anne. 
By the Act of Settlement (12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2, 1701) 
the succession to the Crown of England, on failure of 



APPENDIX. 331 

descendants of Mary and Anne, was settled on Sophia 
and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. 
The Electress Sophia, great-granddaughter of William 
the Silent, is thus not only ancestress of the House of 
Hanover, but is the root from which the succession is 
to be traced under the Parliamentary constitution of 
the United Kingdom. 
Queen Victoria is ninth in descent from William the 
Silent, and thus is nearer to him than any other 
royal x>ersonage in Europe. 
The Electress Sophia left numerous descendants. 
Amongst them are the following : — 
Her great-granddaughter Anne, a daughter of George 
n. of England, m. William IV. of Orange, d. 1751, 
and is the ancestress of the reigning family of the 
Netherlands, who thus combine descents from Fred, 
erick Henry, John of Nassau, and Charlotte de 
Bourbon. 
From the Electress Sophia also were descended the four 
Kings of Denmark, from 1766 to 1863, down to the ac- 
cession of the House of Glucksburg. And the reigning 
House of Denmark has made many alliances with royal 
houses continuing the blood of William the Silent. 
Sophia Dorothea, granddaughter of the Electress 
Sophia, m. Frederick William I. of Prussia, and is 
ancestress of the reigning family of Hohenzollern. 
Similar descents could easily be shown for the extinct 
royal Houses of Brunswick, Hanover, and Westphalia, 
and for the royal families of Sweden, Belgium, and 
Roumania. 
5. Elizabeth (2d daughter of Charlotte de Bourbon), h. 1567, 
d. 1642. She was god-child of Queen Elizabeth, and 
was born at the time of William's highest success. 
She m. (1595) her first cousin Henri, Due de Bouillon, 
Prince of Sedan, etc., son of her mother's sister, Fran- 
Qoise de Bourbon. 
Henri and Elizabeth were the parents of — 

(1) Frederick Maurice, Due de Bouillon, and of 



332 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

(2) Marshal Turenne — both famous in the wars of the 
seventeenth century ; and also of 

(3) Marie ; m. her cousin, Henri de la Tremoille, Due 
de Thouars, etc. 

From Elizabeth descended the famous House of La Tour 
d'Auvergne ; see Baluze, Histoire Genealogique de la 
maison d'Auvergne, folio 1708, vols, i., ii. 

6. Catherine Belgia (3d daughter of Charlotte de Bourbon), 

b. 1578, d. 164iB. 

She was adopted by the United Provinces. 

m. (1596) Philip Lewis II., Count of Hanau-Miinzenberg ; 
and from her descended Philip Maurice and Philip 
Louis III. , in succession Counts of Hanau-Miinzenberg. 

7. Charlotte Flandrina (4tli daughter of Charlotte de Bourbon), 

b. 1579, d. 1640. 
She was adopted by the States of Flanders, and in infancy 
was entrusted to her mother's cousin, Abbess of Para- 
clete. She was only three years old at her mother's 
death, was brought up by her Catholic cousins, and 
ultimately became Abbess of Poitiers. 

8. Charlotte Brabantina (5th daughter of Charlotte de Bour- 

bon), b. 1580, d. 1631. 
She was adopted by the States of Brabant, and was born 

in the year of the Ban of Philip. 
She m. (1598) Claude de la Tremoille, Due de Thouars, 
and from them descended the Dukes of Tremoille. 
Their son Henri, Due de la Tremoille, m. his cousin, 
Marie de la Tour, daughter of the Due de Bouillon 
and Elizabeth before mentioned. 
Their daugliter Cliarlotte de la Tremoille, m. James 
Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby, 1642, and was 
famous in the Civil Wars of England as the de- 
fender of Latliom House with her cousin Prince 
Rupert. 
From her descended the Earls of Derby down to 1736, 
and the present Dukes of Atholl, etc., in England. 

9. Emilia (second) Antwerpiana (6th daughter of Charlotte 

de Bourbon), 6. 1581, d. 1657. 



APPENDIX. 333 

She was born at Antwerp a few months before the crime 

of Jaureguy and the death of her mother. 
Sham. Frederick Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibriicken, 
1604-45. 
Their son was Frederick Lewis, Count Palatine (1643- 
81), ob. s.p. 
John, a brother of Frederick Casimir, m. Louisa, daughter 
of Louisa Juliana, the Electress Palatine. 



The family history of the Nassaus is one of the most copious 
and interesting of modern times. It is remarkable for the 
tenacity and valor of tlie men and the energy and goodness of 
the women. The blood of Nassau ran in the veins of an 
immense number of the illustrious men and women of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it runs still in very 
many of the royal and noble houses of ' Europe. It was a 
family remarkable for its incessant intermarriage, its general 
fertility, and the predominance of female progeny. The 
parents of William the Silent had nineteen children by their 
own double marriages. William had born to him lifteen chil- 
dren by four wives. John of Nassau had twenty-four children 
by three wives. Charlotte de Bourbon had six daughters 
and no son, Frederick Henry four daughters and one son, 
William II. had only one son, and William III. had no chil- 
dren. The House of Orange-Nassau is now represented by 
one young girl. 

The public and private life of this extraordinary family 
may be studied in the following works : — 

Groen van Prinsterer. Archives ou Correspondance de la 
maison d' Orange-Nassau. Ire serie, Leiden, 1841-47 ; 
2me serie, Utrecht, 1857-61. 

Gachard. Correspondance de GuillaumeleTaciturne. Brus- 
sels, 1847-57. 

Count J. Delaborde. Charlotte de Bourbon. Paris, 1888. 

Louise de Coligny. Paris, 1890. 

Vorsterman van Oyen. Het Vorstenhuis Oranje-Nassau. 
Folio. Leiden en Utrecht, 1882. 



334 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

LoRENZ (Ottakar). GenealoQisches Handbuch der EurO' 

pdischen Staatengeschiehte. Berlin, 1895. 
Dr. K. von Behr. Genealogie der in Europa regier'enden 

Furstenhauser. 
Orlers (Jan). Genealogia Comitum Nassoviae. Leiden, 

1616. 
Hope (Karl). Historisch-Genealogischer Atlas. Folio. 

Gotha, 1858. 



NOTE. 

This Life has been compiled from the contemporary autho- 
rities, and in all cases the passages cited have been quoted and 
translated afresh from the original texts. The archives of 
Holland. Belgium, Spain, and Germany contain an immense 
series of documents, which, supplemented by those of Paris 
and of London, picture for us every phase of an age remark- 
able for the extraordinary volume and importance of its 
written records. The principal statesmen of the age carefully 
committed to paper their most secret thoughts and instruc- 
tions in voluminous papers intended solely for their own 
agents and intimates. And an immense body of these papers 
have been preserved at Brussels, the Hague, Simancas, Paris, 
and London. This vast store, in six European languages, has 
to a great extent now been published, edited, and calendared 
by the labors of generations of experts. But for this, a long 
lifetime would not suffice to master the original sources in 
MSS. for the reign of Philip H. and contemporary rulers. 
There have been few epochs when the chanceries of Europe 
have been supplied with so complete a mass of original docu- 
ments, composed with inexhaustible industry, and often with 
profound sagacity. 

The great storehouse of the documents relating to the life 
of William the Silent is to be found in the voluminous collec- 
tions of the Dutch and Belgian archivists, — notably Groen 
van Prinsterer, Gachard, and Kervyn de Lettenhove. The 
magnificent works of van Prinsterer and of Gachard supply a 
mass of contemporary material for the entire life of William, 
largely in his own words. Altogether we have 1770 documents, 
more than 1000 of which were signed by the Prince himself. 
And many less important letters and memoranda are scattered 

335 



336 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

in other works. Besides these, the Justification and the 
Apology published by the Prince make a small volume in 
themselves. Many of these papers are long and elaborate 
despatches to confidential agents, or else intimate letters to 
his brothers and colleagues. The present volume is the result 
of a complete study of all these documents. The following 
authorities have been consulted : — 

Contemporary Authorities. 

Groen van Prinsterer. Archives ou Correspondance Inedite 
de la maison d' Orange- Nassau. 2nd ed. Vols, i.-ix. 
8vo. Leiden, 1841-47. 

Archives ou Correspondance Inedite de la maison 

d^ Orange- Nassau. 2de serie. Vols. i.-v. and Supple- 
ment. Svo. Utrecht, 1857-61. 

Gachard. Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne. Vols, 
i.-vi. 8vo. Brussels, 1847-57. 

Correspondance de Philippe II. sur les Affaires des Pays- 

Bas. Vols. i.-v. 4to. Brussels, 1848-79. 

Correspondance de Marguerite d^Autriche, etc. 4to. 

Brussels, 1867. 
Actes des Etats-Generaux des Pays-Bas. 8vo. Brussels, 

1861. 
Cardinal Granvelle. Papiers d'Etat (ed. C. Weiss). Vols, 

i.-ix. 4to. 1841-53. 

Correspondance. 4to. Brussels, 1877. 

Bor. Oorsprongk der Nederlandsche Oorlogen. Vols, i.-iv. 

Folio. Amsterdam, 1679. 
Hoynck van Papendrecht. Analecta Belgica. 6 parts. 4to. 

The Hague, 1743. 
Hoynck van Papendrecht. Epistolae Vigli ah Aytta. 4to. 

Liege, 1671. 
Hopperus. Vita Vigli (in Hoynck, 1743). 

Recueil et Memorial, etc. (in Hoynck, 1743). 

Pontus Payen. Memoires. Vols. i. ii. Svo. Brussels, 1861. 
Renon de France. Histoire des Troubles des Pays-Bas. Vols. 

i.-iii. 4to. Brussels, 1886-91. 



AUTHORITIES. 337 

La Huguerye (Michel de). Memoires Inedits. Vols, i.-iii. 

8vo. Paris, 1877. 
Kervyn de Volkaerbeke. Documents historiques Inedits 

(1577-84). 2 vols. 8vo. Ghent, 1847. 
Strada (Famiaiius). De Bello Belgico. 4to. Frankfurt, 1651. 
Continued by Foppens. Supplement a Vhistoire de Strada. 

vols. i. ii. 12mo. Amsterdam, 1729. 
VanMeteren. Histoire des Pays-Bas (traduite) . Folio. The 

Hague, 1618. 
Meursius. Gulielmus Auriacus. 4to. Ley den, 1621, 
Aubery du Maurier. Memoires, etc. , 1740. 12mo. 
Brandt. History of the Reformation, etc. (translated) Folio. 

London, 1720. 
Digges. Compleat Ambassador. Folio. London, 1655. 
Ellis (Sir H). Original Letters. 11 vols. 8vo. 1825-46. 
T. Wright. Queen Elizabeth and her Times. 8vo. 1838. 
The Calendars of State Papers (Foreign), 1566-77, and 1558-86. 
La Pise. Tableau d'Orange, etc. Folio. 1639. 
Orlers. La Oenealogie des Nassau. Folio. Leyden, 1615. 
Lacroix. Apologie, etc. 8vo. Brussels, 1858. 

Non-contemporary Authorities. 

Blok (Prof. Pieter J.) Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche 
Volk. Vols, i.-iii. 8vo. Groningen, 1896, 

Kervyn de Lettenhove. Les Huguenots et les Gueux (1560- 
85). Vols, i.-vi. 8vo. Bruges, 1883-85. 

La Flandre pendant les trois derniers siecles. 8vo. 

Bruges, 1875. 

Relations politiques des Pays Bas et de V Angleterre. 4to. 

Brussels, 1882-91. 

Chroniques Beiges Inedites. 4to. Brussels, v.d. 

Delaborde (Count Jules) . Charlotte de Bourbon. Svo. Paris. 

1888. 

Louise de Coligny. 8vo. Vols. i. ii. Paris. 1890. 

Juste (Theodore). Guillaumele Taciturne. Svo. Brussels, 

1873. 
Amoldi. Geschichte der Oranien-Nassauischer. 8vo. Hada- 

mar, 1799. 
22 



338 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 

Motley. Rise of the Dutch Republic. 3 vols. 

United Netherlands. 4 vols. 

Prescott, Philip II. 

Stirling-Maxwell (Sir W.), Don John of Austria, Vols. i. 11. 

8vo. 1883. 
Martin (H.) Histoire de France. Vols. ix. x. 
Michelet (J.) Histoire de France. Vols. iii. iv. 
Froude. History of England. Vols, viii.-xi. incl. 
Beesly (Prof. E. S.) Queen Elizabeth. 8vo. London, 1892. 
Burgon. Life of Sir T. Gresham. Vols. i. ii. 8vo. London, 

1839. 
Arnaud (Eugene). Histoire des Protestants en Provence. 

Vols. i. ii. 8vo. Paris, 1884. 
Hopf (Karl). Historisch-Genealogischer Atlas. Vols. i. ii. 

Folio. Gotha, 1858. 
Vorsterman van Oyen. Het Vorstenhuis Or anje- Nassau, 

Folio. Leyden, 1883. 
Hymans (Louis). Bruxelles a tr avers les Ages. Brussels, 

1883-89. 

THE END. 



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